I saw a tweet recently that I keep coming back to. I was going to write a thread on Twitter but thought this blog might be more useful.
The tweet asked people what their dream job was. There were a lot of replies and a lot of good dream jobs. It occurred to me that no one wrote what I was thinking. Got me thinking that maybe I was the only one who thought the way I did.
How does one know what their dream job is? I know I’ve prob touched on this before but since it’s come up I wanted to explore this further. From an early age I’ve realized unlike a lot of my peers, I had no clue what I wanted to be when I grew up. I often said nurse when pushed to say something. I internalized that so much I almost pursued an education in nursing but at the last minute I backed out. I realized that I only said it and went down that road because it was very familiar to me. I had spent most of my childhood in hospital and as such got to know the nurses really well. I wanted to be just like them. My mom didn’t have a career but worked hard in the customer service industry. I didn’t have any other “professionals” in my life so nursing was all I thought I could do. I also thought I could be a teacher, or lawyer. I ruled out being a teacher early on, when I realized my facial difference would be more of a barrier than I felt comfortable dealing with. Threw out being a lawyer because I didn’t have the skills required to be good at it.
So I have a serious question for all of you. Do YOU know what your dream job is? If so HOW did you know? If something doesn’t straight out and hit you how did/do you discover what you were meant to do. If you do know but are not doing it, why not?
My mom never encouraged my sister and I to do better, be better. Pretty much none of my teachers did either. My guidance counsellor in high school sighted me up for a summer school math class when I expressed interest in nursing. I kind of thought I’d move out, get an apartment get some cool dishes and live a life and have some kids. NONE of that happened. I’m not mad that I own a home, well not fully mad, somewhat though.
I went to university as a mature student with no clue what I wanted to do. I was excited to be the only person in my family to get a disagree and rushed into it. Sadly life happened And bills had to get paid so I gave up trying for an education. When I started working where I am nearly 15 years ago, I retaliated I was good at something. I love coaching others, to build them up to succeed. But again life happens and because I can’t do a 1pm to 9pm shift for who knows how long, I’ve had to give up that as well. So now I’m just a lowly cog in the big machine just doing the thing that pays the bills. It’s NOT a dream job, but it IS a very good job and I’m very thankful.
The concept of following ones dream is not something I will ever understand. I accept this may be a flaw of mine. I would imagine there is great comfort in knowing and finding a path to follow. I really am interested in hearing about how you followed you dream and what it means to you. Leave a comment below.
uniquelypenny 