MON€Y
THROUGHOUT MY TEENAGE YEARS AND INcreasing exponentially throughout most
of my 20s, I was always quietly jealous of
those lucky few who knew exactly what
they wanted to do with their life and exactly how to go about achieving it. Sure,
the idea of being, say, a stock broker or
corporate lawyer still terrifies and repulses me to this day, but at least people
who go into those professions have
some sort of career plan. And that’s to
say nothing of those weirdos who knew
they wanted to be a doctor, a teacher or
a politician since nursery school – honestly, aren’t you supposed to want to be
a superhero, a princess or a fireman until
you’re at least 12 or 13? How is anyone
that put together?
I am absolutely certain that I’m not
alone in spending untold years being
weighed down by the pressure of choosing a career and barely even knowing
where to start. Forget high school, I
spent my years in university majoring
in, by turns, something I found interesting (psychology) and something that
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ISSUE 72
other people thought I would find interesting, or at least have a knack for, (information systems... whatever that is),
and yet still never having any idea about
what I would actually do as a career.
Indeed, years later, even after I finally
decided to try my hand at the one thing
I actually have an interest in and an aptitude for – writing, I think, I hope – I
am still racked by doubts about whether I can make a career out of something
this off the beaten path; whether it ever
really has a chance of being financially
feasible. Throw in the usual bouts of
self-doubt and self-loathing that comes
with doing anything even remotely creative and my thoughts on career and
work are only slightly less unsettled
than they were back when I finished
high school.
But then, that’s really just the world
we’re living in, isn’t it? Our Brave New
World – one of technological wonders,
liberal progressiveness and boundless
opportunity – is a world that offers
more career paths than ever in history;
but with an increase in choice comes a
corresponding increase in paralysing
uncertainty; while the very things that
were specifically designed to make life
simpler often only serve to make it ever
more complex.
Now, this obviously isn’t exactly true
for everyone. Business continues pretty
much as usual for both the ‘lower’ and
‘upper’ classes, as the former are still
stuck doing (if they’re lucky) the menial
tasks that no one else wants, while the
latter – the so-called “one-percenters” –
still hold very nearly all of the world’s
material wealth and continue to live as
such. For the rest of us, though – the
so-called ‘middle class’ – a 21st century
working life is a remarkably different
proposition to what it was as little as a
hundred years ago.
Up until very recently, choosing a career meant deciding between such
clearly delineated professions as farmer, shopkeeper, blacksmith or builder,
while only a select few would take on
such lofty positions as lawyer or doctor.
PHOTOGRAPH: BIGSTOCKPHOTO.COM
Does the Torah have advice on career choices? I BY ILAN PRESKOVSKY