Career

“What do you do?”

It’s the first question at every party. Your answer is supposed to define you. Career is tied up with identity, status, purpose, and money all at once.

No wonder it causes so much anxiety.

The pressure to know

You’re expected to choose a path - ideally by 22, definitely by 30 - and then follow it for 40 years. This expectation is:

Historically bizarre (people used to work to survive, not to “find themselves”)
Increasingly outdated (careers now involve many transitions)
Psychologically crushing (most people don’t know what they want)

If you don’t know what to do with your life, you’re normal. Most people are figuring it out as they go. They just don’t admit it.

Three lies about career

Lie 1: Find your passion and success will follow. Passion is overrated. Most people don’t have an obvious passion. And passion for something doesn’t mean it pays well, that you’re good at it, or that you’ll still like it when it’s your job.

Better approach: follow curiosity, develop skills, let passion emerge from mastery.

Lie 2: Do what you love and you’ll never work a day. This erases the reality that all work has boring, frustrating, and tedious parts. If you expect your job to be constant joy, you’ll be disappointed by every job. Work is work. It can be meaningful without being fun.

Lie 3: There’s a perfect career out there for you. There isn’t. There are many careers you could be happy in, and many you wouldn’t be. The search for “the one” keeps people stuck. Good enough is good enough.

What actually matters in work

Research on job satisfaction consistently finds these factors:

Autonomy. Control over how and when you work. Micromanagement destroys satisfaction even in otherwise good jobs.

Competence. Feeling effective. Using skills that are developed and challenged. Getting better at things.

Relatedness. Working with people you respect. Feeling part of something.

Meaning. Believing your work matters, even in small ways. Connected to something beyond yourself.

Fair compensation. Money matters up to a point. Below a threshold, it’s a source of stress. Above it, more money has diminishing returns.

Notice what’s not on this list: prestige, glamour, following your passion, loving every minute.

If you don’t know what to do

Some practical approaches:

Lower the stakes. Your next job doesn’t have to be your forever job. Treat it as an experiment. What can you learn? What might it reveal about your preferences?

Start with constraints, not dreams. Instead of “what do I want to do?” try “what am I willing to tolerate?” What hours, stress levels, environments are acceptable? What’s unacceptable? Narrowing down is easier than picking.

Get skills that transfer. Some skills work across fields: communication, analysis, project management, technical abilities. Invest in these regardless of career direction.

Try things. You can’t think your way to career clarity. Take internships, side projects, volunteer work, informational interviews. Data from experience beats data from imagination.

Notice energy, not just interest. What activities energize you versus drain you? You can be interested in something that exhausts you. Energy is a better signal than interest alone.

The trap of prestige

Prestige careers (law, medicine, finance, consulting) attract people because they answer “what do you do?” in satisfying ways. The status is real.

But prestige is expensive:

Years of training/education
Often brutal hours
Sometimes you end up hating the work
Status wears off, but the job remains

Some people love these careers. Many people pursue them for the status and end up miserable.

Ask: would I want this job if nobody knew I had it? If I couldn’t tell anyone? If it had no prestige? The answer clarifies your motivation.

Career transitions

Your career will probably change. Multiple times. This is increasingly normal.

What makes transitions easier:

Transferable skills (see above)
Financial cushion (see Finances)
Network of relationships (see Relationships)
Identity not over-attached to current job (see Identity)

What makes transitions harder:

Golden handcuffs (high compensation for work you hate)
Lifestyle inflation (expenses rise to match income)
Sunk cost thinking (“I’ve already invested so much…”)
Fear of starting over

Transitions feel harder than they usually are. People adapt. New skills develop. New identities form.

Work-life balance

“Balance” implies equal weight. But work and life aren’t separate buckets to fill evenly.

Better frame: what role do you want work to play in your life?

Options exist on a spectrum:

Work as central meaning (career-focused)
Work as funding for life (paycheck approach)
Work as one meaningful thing among several (balanced)
Work as minimal (lifestyle design)

None of these is right or wrong. But be honest about what you’re choosing.

The money question

Work and money are connected but separable. Some considerations:

How much money do you actually need? (Usually less than you think)
How much is more money worth in terms of time/stress/life?
Are you chasing money or chasing what you think money represents?

Money buys freedom and security. Past a point, it mostly buys status and stuff. Know what you’re trading your time for.

A minimal career philosophy

Work to live, don’t live to work (unless you genuinely love working)
Invest in transferable skills
Don’t sacrifice health for career
Keep financial needs modest so you can take risks
Your job is not your identity
Good enough is good enough

The career question doesn’t have to be answered permanently. It just has to be answered for now.

Related: Purpose (finding direction), Finances (the money side), Identity (who you are beyond your job)