How I Accidentally Found My Dream Job
There is no shortage of advice on how to achieve one’s dream job. First, people said follow your passion. Then, as people started realizing that most people have no idea what their passions were, people said to find your meaning outside your work. But your job takes up so much of your time, and most people hate them. If you hate your job, it’s hard not to hate your life. Then people said try to retire early, but that’s just delaying the inevitable – figuring out what your passion is. People want to spend their lives doing something enjoyable and meaningful – but how does one find out what that kind of job is and then, how does one get that job?
What is a Dream Job?
When people think of dream jobs, we think of some job that would be the envy of others. But we can’t all be rock stars or fashion designers (and the world would grind to a halt if we were). This is not an article about finding an enviable job, but about finding a job that fits your unique talents and goals.
Dream jobs are not perfect jobs. That is to say, they might not match your passions, your salary desires, work hours, colleagues, etc. for all time. Further, even if there were jobs like that, the job would change and you would change. Every job has pros and cons, though in a dream job, the pros vastly outweigh the cons for that period in your life. Finally, I want to say that dream jobs may not be premade. You might start at a dream job and have to work to fix some of the less desirable parts to make it fit you and your lifestyle.
Thus, though I think I have the perfect job for myself right now, for a number of reasons, this wouldn’t have been my dream job 10 years ago. When I just graduated law school, I wanted a job that would teach me a lot of practical legal skills (law school is more theoretical than practical) and I wanted a big salary because I had such massive law school loans. So, when I finished law school, my dream was a litigation job at a bigger law firm. I didn’t derive a lot of meaning from that job, but it satisfied my needs for security.
What is my Dream Job?
Ten years after graduation, my loans have been paid off, I’ve attained a certain level of financial security, and I have learned a lot of transferable skills in my chosen field. I wanted something that felt like I was making a difference. It sounds quite polyanna-ish. However, when you don’t need to a lot of money to meet your lifestyle needs, when you’re spending so much of your time at work, and when you’re getting older, you start to think about your time more carefully, and your potential legacy.
Maybe this won’t be that interesting to any of you because I don’t have one of those obvious dream jobs. I don’t have the kind of job that independently wealthy people seek out to occupy their times. I’m not a rock star or fashion designer. I’m an immigration attorney. But I love my job.
Determining Your Dream Job
There’s a concept in Japan called “ikigai” which roughly translates to your purpose, constituting four parts:
- what you love to do / an area you are passionate about
- what the world needs / providing a useful service
- what you are good at / your skills and talents
- what you can get paid for / what you can do that can provide for yourself
Some of the criteria will assume different weights over time or change over time. After all, there are things that you can love for a season, or things that are paying or well-paying for a season. Maybe you don’t mind long hours when you’re young, but the time away from home hurts when you have a kid. Maybe you don’t need a lot of money when you’re young but need more when you have to support a family.
Why is it So Hard to Find One’s Dream Job?
A lot of the problems with finding dream jobs is that people are wrong about a lot of things with regard to jobs and with regard to themselves. They do not know what jobs really entail, they don’t know what they’re good at, and they don’t know what they love to do. Further, it’s hard to go for something different than what our family and friends expect. When we talk about dream jobs, we think that people have a clear and obvious passion for something high-paying and glamorous. It takes a lot of bravery to explore.
How Did I Get Here?
Most people think people become lawyers because they love arguing. I hate arguing – also people who love arguing are the most annoying lawyers. Instead, I took a bit more of a circuitous route to law.
To get a little braggy, I peaked as a child. =D As a kid, I had lots of options for careers. I trained as a classical pianist but I hated performing, so it wasn’t a viable career. I had good grades in both the arts and sciences. I studied English and physics in college and obtained a job as an engineer with the federal government. Then I jettisoned that path when I thought of my life as a cushy fed, and instead pursued a more dilettante-ish life as an English teacher in China. When I returned to America, I really had no idea what I was going to do. I had always loved personal finance and took a job as a financial analyst before attending law school.
How I Stumbled Into Law
Ally McBeal was one of my favorite TV shows and though I had the impression that it wasn’t a realistic portrayal of law firm life, law seemed like a stable job. It’s one of the three types of careers that get the ok from Asian parents – doctor, lawyer, and engineer. I already turned down a job as an engineer, knew I couldn’t endure the grueling training to become a doctor, so lawyer seemed perfect.
I figured I would work for a few years at a law firm and then go back to that cushy job that I had despised at 21. I ended up working for 7 years at a law firm, took two years off, spent two years with the government, and then landed at my current job.
Finding Meaning in My Work
I’ve never had a problem with the morality of my work. I view being a lawyer akin to being a doctor – everyone deserves good medical care just like they deserve good legal advice no matter what they’ve done in the past or who they are.
My first week in immigration law, a partner took me to his trial. I met the young client and his friend, who had been paying our bills. He was quiet, probably nervous for his trial. It was a surprisingly simple and fast trial and the client won his greencard. He looked to his friend, who was sitting next to me, and he flashed the biggest smile I’d ever seen.
It was a look of pure joy that I didn’t see often in my career or in my life. I worked in litigation for big companies, but the best expression you could see is relief that the case is over. You never win anything good. I would see this expression repeatedly over the next few weeks as immigrants won their status, were granted their work permits, and became citizens.
Finding Joy Unexpectedly
In immigration law, you can see joy often because people don’t seek U.S. citizenship or status because they have some obligation to. They do it because they are achieving a dream.
It’s amazing to be around this feeling often at work and to be able to help people achieve their dreams.
Of course there are things that I don’t like about my job. But there are a lot of things that make this a dream job specifically for me. For one, I love being in the office every day. I love dressing up. Both of these traits aren’t traits that most people would love but they’re also things that aren’t that common anymore. Immigration law is a career where you can see joy quite often.
How I Accidentally Fell Into My Dream Job
There are two mindsets that I had that were critical to being happy in my job. One mindset was that I knew I could be happy. The problem with many lawyers, in my opinion, is that they’re deadset on not being happy in their jobs. There isn’t any real reason that lawyers are some of the unhappiest in their careers. They don’t have the worst working conditions or the worst salaries.
The other mindset is that I wanted to be happy in my job. I wasn’t content to have a job that I hated or even disliked. I spend a lot of time at work. I know people who are
There are two themes of my job search. One is that I developed some skills. I worked for years training to be a lawyer. With many things, what you work on, you grow to love. But I tried different iterations of my legal career. I worked at a bigger firm, I tried working for the government, I tried nonprofit work, and now I work at a small firm. I didn’t constantly start from scratch.
Conclusion – How I Accidentally Found My Dream Job
Our lives are both too short and too long to not seek out one’s passions. For me, the journey to finding my dream was 1) continuing to learn one’s likes and dislikes; 2) developing skills; 3) tweaking until you find the right fit; and 4) learning to be happy. But that doesn’t mean you’re done, because you change and your job changes. This is my dream job right now but I’ll keep experimenting and trying new things. For now, I’m happy where I am.