As a third-year student at University, I will shortly be entering the job market as a new-minted graduate. This is the time of year when the moderately savvy of us begin to think about where we want to work after leaving education, or, in more conventional parlance 'what we want to do'. There's a plethora of information on the subject, online and otherwise, covering every area from how to find your perfect job to how to act once you've got it. One thing is for sure, as a contemporary author has said, that one thing we must all have, those of us who wish to succeed, is a plan.
As a literature student, I find taking such ideas as 'plans' and 'success' at face value to be somewhat redundant. The real value lies in unpacking these ideas in order to find out what they really mean. The model of 'success' that we follow is commonly accepted, still, to be an abstract conglomerate of 'job, partner, children, house and LOTS of money'. It's in the national consciousness. Put simply, success is providing for one's young and ensuring they have a good start in life. This is all very well; I can't fault the ambition itself. However, doesn't this whole career, this job, this 'thing one does' seem conspicuously absent? We might ask ourselves, why, in an environment where one spends around five days in every seven at work, often until the age of sixty or older, our basic measure of success is nothing to do with the actual work we do, but with what it gets us? In an environment that, in many situations, defines us within society (as in the dinner party cliché 'what do you do?') our main goal is to get as much money as we can. It's no wonder people talk so much about their work-life balance, when they work their whole lives to have a life which they then have very little time left to live. The concept of 'success' is the result of an amorphous, unstructured, multi-dimensional set of circumstances that can probably never be fully traced back to their origins; however, looked at objectively, as an end in itself, it simply doesn't make sense.
Thus, having a plan on how to achieve success is roughly akin to planning to make a cake and expecting to end up with a birthday party.
"It's great! But I feel like something is missing..."
credit bbc.co.uk
There are people I know who, in their early wisdom, decided that they would be successful in the conventional sense of the term. They work very hard to accumulate a lot of money, seemingly denying themselves those things that would, at the cost of some of that hard-won cash, add a considerable amount to their life satisfaction. This insightful article presents a plausible explanation for this glut of accumulation; that no matter what one has, our gathering instinct tells us that we must have more. This becomes a problem when much of the reward we feel for the work that we do is directly related to the accumulation of wealth that it allows us. As I argued in this earlier article of mine, 'when a person gains satisfaction of another kind from their work [...] they less readily pursue financial rewards'. Thus, perhaps one's ambition at this crucial time should be not to 'be successful', but to be satisfied. Perhaps we should even aim to be happy!
I feel very lucky that, in studying my degree, I have discovered what it is that really gives me a sense of satisfaction. After nearly three years of studying literature, I finally know what it is like to feel truly 'full'. That hunger for a thing that fulfils me is gone; I am content. I know that, so long as I find work that allows me to fully use the skills I have gained in the course of my education, I will be satisfied. So what if I don't earn £100k, own a Lexus, buy a house at thirty, have two million in savings to give to my kids? As has been obvious thoughout history (to those that pay attention) not everyone can be rich. This isn't because 'everyone isn't rich', it isn't because 'some people have all the luck' and it isn't because 'not everyone has the ability' or even because 'the rich exploit the poor'; the reason is simply that rich and poor are relative terms. They define themselves by their opposition to another concept. There is no 'poor' without the 'rich' - and vice versa. To be happy to step away from this opposition, to define for oneself what success (at a particular endeavour) is, is surely to find what one really wants.
I can't change the world. Studying literature is like studying the history of a culture through words; my only disappointment is that my conception of the world as a whole is limited by my knowledge of language. History is endless repetition, there is very little in this world that is truly original, and very little happens that has not happened similarly in some form at some point in history. This is not a cause for dismay or depression - the world is a fascinating, complex, beautiful place - but there will always be poverty, success, crime, injustice. This is not because humanity is callous or cruel, but because, like with rich and poor, those things are relative. They are concepts.
In this time of job worries, it is easy, as a graduate, to lose heart about one's prospects. We shouldn't, however, fall into the trap of wishing for the world to be different. It isn't. There is only one thing that we can be sure of improving if we put our minds to it: ourselves.
Be an optimist, be brilliant, and be happy.
Happy New Year!
credit to HD Wallpapers
Any Updates Comming Soon ?
ReplyDeleteYes indeed. I write when I'm inspired, so there will likely be something else soon.
ReplyDeleteI'm always interested in feedback though; what interests you about my writing?