Jobs Reviews

In today’s world, the word ‘career’ generally is taken to imply the principal type of remunerative work we perform throughout our adult lives. When considering the broader course of human history, the very idea of a career has only surfaced in recent centuries; a curiosity, or aberration if you will, that only reared its head since the founding of major corporations.

Courtesy of the continuous developments and advances in the field of telecommunications and the progressive decentralization of the workforce, it’s not easy to discern just how much longer the notion of ‘careers’ will continue. To be frank, all that a ‘career’ really describes is the idea of somebody following along in a chain of opportunities and skills defined and chosen by another person. It is a way for allowing others to tell us how we fit in to the grand scheme of things and what our worth really is.

It has always seemed revealing to me that the word itself (career) contains the word ‘care’ within it. As if to imply that the companies and corporations for which we perform our career have taken for themselves the role of caring for us during the course of our professional adult lives. It is as if they become babysitters, keeping us from learning how to make decisions wisely or learning how to value ourselves on our own. It’s all based on a certain basic unwillingness on their behalf to let people become the managers of their own development, to determine their own worth. Which is why we supposedly have ‘careers’, to help us find the way forward in life, something which only holds much promise if and when we are deemed to be worthwhile and the employer can afford to see us promoted (which implies they have someone to fill our spot).

Considering all this, it’s no surprise so many people hate their jobs. All it is is work work work, completely based on someone else’s directives and vision of the future, all geared towards building their life and not one’s own. Nonetheless, we all continue to use the term ‘career’ as if it were the end all and be all of human existence.

I remember back to when I was a child: being babysat on the evenings when my parents would go out was never my favorite moment; what really got me going was getting to go outside to play with friends and siblings. What changes so drastically for that no longer to be the case as adults? At what point do we resign ourselves to letting someone else determine our value and degree of success? Why do we choose to yield the driver’s wheel to another? What on earth convinces us that having a ‘career’ is so incredibly important?

‘Making a living’, now that’s more talking my language. I’m not sure if you noticed, but the term is simply about life. And that’s what careerists often forget I think. We are on this earth to live. Not to be babysat. We are here to learn our own lessons, in our own time. We are here to experience, grow and love. We are here to find and define our own value, not have someone do it for us. That is what making a living is about, its making life.

And that is the thing that I really love about internet marketing. Sure, you need to learn some skills for writing successful webpages, optimizing on the search engines and the like, but they are just technical skills which anyone can learn.

The main thing I love about making a living on the internet though is that the only type of business that works on the internet, are businesses about things you are passionate about. The reason is simple. Every topic in the world carries to some degree, its own language. It is only when you are passionate about a topic that you will understand this language. It is only when you know this language that you will be able to reach the people who share your passion and sell them the real value you have to offer. This, for better or worse, is the internet way.

Which is what makes this such a beautiful industry: to find success, you first have to find your passion. And in that sense I do not consider myself to have a career, but rather to be someone that merely makes a living. Even including this article, everything I work on I am passionate about. I never wake up dreading life anymore, but rather jump up out of bed eager to tackle a new day. No more fretting about missed opportunities or promotions I didn’t get, etc. etc. I measure my own value according to the web creations I make, the contribution they make to my back account, the lifestyle I get to enjoy and the extra time I have on my hands.

Given such a beautiful scenario, I could never bring myself to do anything else.

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