Having a job that pays well, that’s great. Having a job that pays well and that you are passionate about, that’s better. This is how a lot of professionals summarise their vision of work satisfaction. However, this statement creates a mind-set which would consider a career change as nothing more than a whim. So, is wanting to get a job that we are passionate about a whim? A sudden, thoughtless and fleeting desire?

 

Today, we speak of jobs that pay well and that the employees are also passionate about. With this objective in mind, we come face to face with two different points of view: some believe our society has evolved and that right now, not being a slave to your work has become an unchallengeable base; others take into account the strained economic situation and believe that wanting to get a job we are passionate about is somewhat unrealistic.

Each of us thinks we are forging our own opinions, but we forget the impact of our own personal beliefs on our judgment. A family of labourers for example will find it harder to understand that their child wants above all to do a job they like,  as opposed to a family from a better socioprofessional category. The relationship to work in both these examples is fundamentally different.

In the first case, the job is what allows them to live and answer their primary needs, and the lack of qualifications within this population doesn’t give them a choice, or at least rarely. So, the willingness to get a job they are passionate about can seem like something that lacks seriousness and pragmatism: a whim.

In the second case, the job is taken just as seriously but here, there isn’t the notion of urgency because the primary needs are met to some extent, the qualifications allow them to choose and there is trust in the family job network. However, there is very often a sort of pressure from within the family which forces them to choose a more prestigious job and /or allows them to keep their socioeconomic standing.

In both cases, those who want to change jobs will have a choice between doing research themselves and hoping to find the right opportunity or calling for outside help from professionals like OrientaEuro who specialise in career development.

Depending on our own situation, we will form different opinions about whether wanting a job that we are passionate about is a whim or not. However, even without being categorised in either of these cases, we will have our own very personal way of evaluating our working conditions, being either too critical or too compassionate: “Yes I get up at 4 o’clock every day and have a 3h trip to get to work but there are some who have it much worse so it’s ok”, or: “2h of commuting a day? Absolutely not, I can’t stay in this situation, it has to change”. For some, this would show a kind of courage, but for others a submission to work.

So happy at work or not, the answer is somewhat unique to each person. Amongst those who don’t necessarily feel passionate about their job, some will never focus on that aspect of ‘living their passion at work’.  In the best case scenario their life will be very ordered where one of the very rare advantages will be knowing exactly what time they will finish at in the evening. In this sense, our professional life will be the job that allows us to survive and nothing more.

Finally, others will believe that their professional life represents an important part of their existence and so, getting a job they are passionate about is something important, if not essential. Being passionate about your work will lead to pro-active behaviour: you are no longer just a helping hand waiting to be given the next task, you evolve naturally by yourself. In fact, you only rarely look at your watch and are even surprised sometimes at how late it is.

Changing professions is a possibility that many of us have already thought about and imagined. We are talking about desires here. And it is because we naturally like change and new challenges and that we are constantly looking for a new and more interesting job situation. However, subconscious brakes are there and slow us down whenever there is a possible change of situation. Most of us will never realise it. For others, there is OrientaEuro…

 

And you, what do you think about this subject? Leave your comments!