{"id":6863,"date":"2019-02-22T18:38:20","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T18:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/?p=6863"},"modified":"2019-02-28T18:12:41","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T18:12:41","slug":"what-we-mean-when-we-talk-about-our-dream-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/what-we-mean-when-we-talk-about-our-dream-job\/","title":{"rendered":"What We Mean When We Talk About Our \u201cDream Job\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a phrase we use a lot in our lives and in our professional career. Maybe we use it most honestly when we\u2019re a few libations to the wind on a Saturday night, our toes hitting the beach. Maybe that\u2019s when we feel best about saying, \u201cWhat I\u2019d REALLY love to do with my life is\u2026\u201d There is an element to the idea of the dream job that is just a form of the old \u201cgrass is always greener\u201d mentality, as in, \u201cAt my dream job<\/a>, I wouldn\u2019t have to do these end-of-week reports.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

But we don\u2019t all want to be those specific things. Opera singers, lion tamers, etc. But we do use that term \u201cdream job\u201d when we feel like picturing our very best lives. So what do we mean?<\/p>\n

1.)\u00a0A job to fit our skill set like a glove<\/b>\u2013 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.<\/p>\n

2.) A\u00a0Job That We Only Have to Go To When We Feel Like It<\/b>\u2013 That\u2019s 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 \u201cget \u2018er done.\u201d 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 \u2013 that we work hard to get to a place where we don\u2019t have to work as hard \u2013 is one of the central themes of a life lived working in America.<\/p>\n

3.)We Want a Job That Involves Our Interests<\/b>\u2013 We also dream of a job that\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

4.)We Want To Be Paid Well For It<\/b>\u2013 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\u2019s version of a \u201cdream job\u201d involves the kind of compensation that allows extended tropical vacations for dreaming and maybe an eventual ticket on Richard Branson\u2019s spaceship.<\/p>\n

5.)We Want to Be The Boss<\/b>\u2013 People, by their nature, don\u2019t necessarily like to be constrained by anyone else\u2019s vision, brilliant or otherwise. So in our visions of the perfect job, many of us are also our own bosses, or \u2013 in some cases \u2013 the bosses of a huge workforce of underlings who must do our every bidding.<\/p>\n

6.)\u00a0We Want a Job That Reflects Our Values<\/b>\u2013 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a phrase we use a lot in our lives and in our professional career. Maybe we use it most honestly when we\u2019re a few libations to the wind on a Saturday night, our toes hitting the beach. Maybe that\u2019s when we feel best about saying, \u201cWhat I\u2019d REALLY love to do with my life … Read full-story <\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,7,4],"tags":[11,361,36],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6863"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6863"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6935,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6863\/revisions\/6935"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}