“One of the biggest mistakes people make in their careers is to treat work primarily as a means to an end. Maybe this is what you have done throughout your career up to this point. If so, you have done what so many do on their fluid intelligence curves—have learned that’s a mistake and decided it’s time to stop. Whether that end is money, power, or prestige, the instrumentalization of work leads to unhappiness.” — Arthur C. Brooks, From Strength to Strength

We’ve all got to pay the bills, line up health insurance, and be productive at something in our lives, but we ought to be careful about the path we choose to get there. Slogging through years in a career that we don’t like, working for people we’d just as soon not be associated with, for money, power or prestige is a recipe for an unhappy, unfulfilling life. We all think we see a light at the end of the tunnel when we’re in these types of pursuits, only to find the tunnel opens up to a sheer cliff. This is our only go at things, so why do things that don’t resonate deeply within?

The other path is doing work for the joy of doing the work. It’s not a means to an end but the path itself that we find meaning in. We aren’t all lucky enough to find ourselves on that path for our entire career, but we ought to have it on our radar. Having switched career paths a few times in my life, I usually felt a sense of excitement akin to a first date: this could be the one. Alas, it was usually the one for now and would soon run it’s course. Life offers all kinds of stepping stones, and inevitably showing up every day, building a network and a reputation leads to growth opportunities.

Every day is a winding road
I get a little bit closer
Every day is a faded sign
I get a little bit closer to feeling fine
— Sheryl Crow, Everyday Is A Winding Road

At this stage in my career, I’m more inclined to do interesting work than worry about money, power or prestige. There’s something liberating in that realization. And it leads me towards more creative pursuits, where perhaps I should have been all along. How about you? Every day is a winding road, as the song goes. A great life begins with making that winding road interesting to travel, for we won’t pass this way again.