The Unemployment Diaries- Testing

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Amongst my other job hunting tools I’ve been reading a lot of books about careers, job hunting, networking…all as fascinating as you might expect. In that reading I’ve run across something I find so startling I thought I’d see how others react.

Many of these books begin with the straightforward question: what would you like to do? Or better yet questions like these:

 

1. If you had one year left to live how would you spend that year? Drunk and maxing out stolen credit cards
2. What is holding you back from the life you really want? George Clooney doesn’t date women his own age.
3. If you inherited $10 million dollars what would you do with the rest of your life and what would you do with the money? Huh?

It has seldom been said about me that I have no imagination. I can take the proverbial ball and run it into the ground with scenarios AND mix metaphors at the same time (I’m that clever). Hell, I can’t drive past a wooded area without thinking ‘is there a body buried out there? Because it would be an easy place to bury a body’. I’m ALWAYS imagining something but these kinds of questions leave me stumped (smart ass answers aside).

OK, with $10 million dollars I’d do a lot of the standard trip-around- the-world, donate-to-charity, pay-off-the-mortgage kind of things but after that? What? I mean I wouldn’t blow through all of it that way even if we step back into reality and factor in the bite Uncle Sam would take.

Obviously, the gist of these questions is to ferret out what you’d really like to be doing with your life but, you know what? For me that’s bullshit. There’s a big difference between being employed and daydreaming and being out of work. Out of work removes any fantasy aspects to the rest of your life. At this stage here’s all I want for the rest of my professional life (which is getting shorter every minute): a job in my field that pays enough to meet my needs with health benefits without having to relocate. Despite my lifelong fascination with power tools and heavy equipment I think it’s a bit late to become a welder and the husband has stated categorically that he won’t move east of the Rockies. I don’t think I’m asking a lot but based on my situation I’m shooting for the moon.

If I am able to ignore reality what I’ve learned (and not from these books) is that I may not have a dream vocation. For a long time I’d thought it was to be writer but I’ve had over a year and not written anything other than this blog and book reviews (neither of which pay). I don’t have the next great American novel inside me- and that’s all right.

Back to the premise ( how stupid job searching books are). Passion, doing what you love is a wonderful thing and there are those who have made careers out of it but is it realistic for the rest of us? I don’t know any entrepreneurs who aren’t working a daytime job or living with their parents.

 

How about you? Do you harbor a dream you’d like to fulfill? Could you answer the above questions with no hesitation? Or are you pursuing your dreams while holding down a job? Share please!