When 25, I googled the difference between life goals and
career goals to get a better understanding of what the hell was going on in my
life. Reading the clear text gave me the precious understanding. Several
learnings. Pearls of wisdom.
Firstly, there is a difference between a job and a career.
For a job, you can expect to have a life outside the job; a career is your way
of life. It can be either extremely rewarding, if you are cut out for it or have
learnt to enjoy it; or otherwise, god may help you.
Invariably after passing out from top colleges in India,
99.99% of us focus on career goals, consciously or sub consciously. The
understanding is that, a rewarding career would in turn provide for rich experiences,
which would make life good. So far, so good. But it does happen in certain
cases, am still not sure how many, that a chosen career might not be able to
provide enough life experiences, as you value them, or unable to lead you to
the life goals important to you. So far, so good? Then the understanding comes,
or the plight of the choice, are you really career oriented or life oriented.
Are these 2 things really as different as chalk and cheese?
Mostly, people strike balance in between the two. But
striking balance never creates history, does it. Interesting are the ones who
go to the extremes, successfully. They either pick up and excel in career
goals, or realize the importance of their life goals and plunge for it. Another
bunch lies somewhere in between, slogging too hard to live a rewarding life
while doing justice to their careers. And the rest of the bunch, who fails to
put a mark in his/her career, or plunge for life goals, or heroically enough,
able to justify the pains of career building to sustain a good life, is just a
lost case.
Are you career oriented or life oriented? How consistent you
have been in this orientation? This would define a lot of things. From your
choice of partner, to choice of job you sat for placements, to the level of
frustration you face at work.
This lens does not solve any real problem, no. But it does
enable me to understand the conflict I face within at this age, day in day out.
Am I career oriented, am I life oriented. Can I depend on my
career to get the life/experiences/skills I dreamt of? Am I too dreamy to pursue
clear cold cut career goals? Am I adaptive enough to modify my life goals to
fit within the realms of my choice of permissible career? Would that be
satisfying enough?
What is interesting is, when executed well, both the
orientations can be highly rewarding. Kicking ass in boardroom would lift my
mood equivalent to learning and performing a cartwheel. Do people get to do
both? Or does then happiness lie in the continuous ability to strike the balance
between the two and rationalisation.
And what, if you are both. Both life oriented and career
oriented. Is it possible? Is it allowed? Does it take a superhuman effort?
Would it ensure you are suitably rewarded? Are you getting a headache? I have
not even started on family orientation.
Apples and oranges, they say.
