Work, Jobs, Careers

Work helps to give meaning to life.

Seek to find a job or career that best makes use of your particular interests and talents. Also, realize that your particular interests and talents will change with time. 

To maximize your potential, to become self-actualized, you must seek to become intelligent (educated, knowledgeable). It takes knowledge to be able to do any job. The more knowledge you have, the better you will be at your job. 

Even a seemingly simple job is actually very complex, if you seek to do it to the best of your ability. Take for example a cook. Cooking can be as simple as opening a can and heating up the contents. Or it can be as complex as growing your own food, using or preserving it, and combining it with a set of spices and other foods that fit with the time of year and the people that you are feeding. If you want to feed people intelligently, you also want to be aware of the nutritional qualities to what you make, and of the metabolism of your customers (see Gluttony). 

Realize that your job will take one-third or more of a day, so you need to try to find a job that has some satisfaction (not just money). You can never succeed in totally separating your job from the other parts of your day. If you want to live intelligently, then you will need to try to find that “best” job for you (see Happiness). To help in that goal, you should take career assessment surveys, which help to identify your areas of interest and point you in the directions you should pursue. Unfortunately, you also need to decide if those directions have a high or low likelihood of success, as certain careers may be very popular/overloaded or may be in very low demand/need. You may need to work at less interesting jobs, for many years, or possibly your whole working life. Just keep in mind the purpose of life, and avoid jobs that cause you veer away from that goal (see Why We Are Here, Persevere).

No matter what job/career you pursue, keep trying to become educated (see Education). As you learn more, you will begin to see more possibilities in the world, that were previously invisible to you. Because the world around us keeps changing, education is a life-long endeavor. Remember that as you learn more, you will be better prepared to help raise children intelligently. 

Work is usually thought of, as something we have to do that is unpleasant. Certainly, that can be true, but it doesn’t have to be. Two people can be doing the same task, one experiencing suffering while the other experiencing a certain amount of happiness. Because the reasons for this are internal/invisible, try to find out how to experience happiness at whatever you do (see Happiness).

Work helps to give meaning to life.