Choose a Job You Love

Article in brief: the author talks about the shift in the society towards self-owned businesses rather than safety of stable salary.

‘Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.’ Confucius

come across this quote more times than I can count, but it made sense to me on a deeper level only recently. The security of procuring a high position job in the corporate world has lost its luster, and more soul-searching is going on into finding what touches your soul. Battling guilt from leaving behind the ideal norms of the typical successful working life no longer forms an obstacle for the naturally creative leaders out there, and the world and its growth has made it more possible for this phenomenon to succeed and flourish.

Another quote from another great philosopher stood out for me:

“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.” Aristotle

It’s simple; if you enjoy what you are doing, chances are, you will do a wonderful job at it, mainly because of the joy you bring to it, and secondly, because of the skills you bring with your qualifications.

Here’s one of the stories that made me realize this revelation. While having breakfast at my usual spot in London, I managed to get a chance to properly meet the manager after three years of merely exchanging pleasantries with her, and was blessed with one of the most enlightening conversations I ever had.

Magda came to London ten years ago to settle after living around Europe for the first thirty years of her life. Born to highly educated parents in a communist country, living a dual life of obeying the country’s strict régime and listening to the droning of highly intellectual parents, then being sent to Germany to study bioengineering in hopes of procuring a secure future, she led a proper life without much passion.

Doing everything by the book has not felt right for her, “I like dealing with people and caring for them, not bacteria!” she exclaimed, referring to her parents’ choice of studies.

Arriving to London, Magda took up hospitality studies, putting aside her previous degree and worked her way into the restaurateur business, she then invested in one of the most established restaurants in London, while still working as a hostess, and she newly started launching the work of startup authors and artists. In brief, doing what makes her happy.

When you are lucky enough to know what it is that makes you happy and turning it into your life’s mission, it is no longer a mere job, but you have found your path and going on the right tracks, feeding your soul’s need. Till we reach this stage of realizing what we want to do, it might take some time and wrong turns, which will turn out to be necessary lessons that direct us to the right way. We are all here on our unique mission, and through attaining it, we find ourselves.

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” Rumi