It’s a phrase we use a lot in our lives and in our professional career. Maybe we use it most honestly when we’re a few libations to the wind on a Saturday night, our toes hitting the beach. Maybe that’s when we feel best about saying, “What I’d REALLY love to do with my life is…” There is an element to the idea of the dream job that is just a form of the old “grass is always greener” mentality, as in, “At my dream job, I wouldn’t have to do these end-of-week reports.”
But there are also people out there who have those dream jobs, who live lives we assume are fraught with endless wonder, hapiness, satisfaction, and beauty. Like people who love the ocean and sea life and make their living diving; or filmmakers and authors who have the autonomy granted by success to create whatever they want; or educators who know a subject like they know their own heart and who can cram a hall full of young heads with the wisdom of the ages.
But we don’t all want to be those specific things. Opera singers, lion tamers, etc. But we do use that term “dream job” when we feel like picturing our very best lives. So what do we mean?
1.) A job to fit our skill set like a glove– We want a job that would pay us to do something we already do very well, and that we enjoy doing, and that we think we can legitimiately help others by doing. We want a job where when others see how we do it, they wonder how we make it look so easy.
2.) A Job That We Only Have to Go To When We Feel Like It– That’s not the way to work, as we all know. Persistence is the key, even when you have to push through some real personal energy crisis to “get ‘er done.” But we still inherently feel that a dream job would allow us to never miss the best surf, and to include an extended lunch/siesta break that lasts from 12:30 until we feel like getting up. This inherent conflict – that we work hard to get to a place where we don’t have to work as hard – is one of the central themes of a life lived working in America.
3.)We Want a Job That Involves Our Interests– We also dream of a job that’s in the field we like to spend our time focusing on during our off-work hours. People who do the crossword relgiously would like to be the person pulling the strings on the planning and design of the puzzle. People with a love for fashion would love to make their living in that world. People who love comic books would love to get the chance to work in a bustling comic book bullpen like Marvel had back in the 1960s.
4.)We Want To Be Paid Well For It– Well, sure. Our dream job may involve personal work satisfaction on an unheard level, but we all gotta make a living. And while some would take a pittance to do the thing they love for work, most people’s version of a “dream job” involves the kind of compensation that allows extended tropical vacations for dreaming and maybe an eventual ticket on Richard Branson’s spaceship.
5.)We Want to Be The Boss– People, by their nature, don’t necessarily like to be constrained by anyone else’s vision, brilliant or otherwise. So in our visions of the perfect job, many of us are also our own bosses, or – in some cases – the bosses of a huge workforce of underlings who must do our every bidding.
6.) We Want a Job That Reflects Our Values– Being the richest man who ever lived must come with some sleepless nights, but it seems that guys like Jeff Bezos and the late Steve Jobs really made sure that the things they found personally important to them became things that were baked into the DNA of their companies. Sure, the best laid plans experience some drift from the purity of the original ideas, but it does seem possible to project personal value on a large scale. The catch, of course, is that your personal values better be good ones.
