Nothing too inspired about this one – it’s not like I had a long week or was tired that day. Simply a thought that crossed my mind while driving home from work. I tried out the voice transcriber functionality on the phone with passable results, then edited to the freeform below, just because.
There is a common saying that goes
If you love what you do you’ll never
Work a day in your life.
Like every person who has done a day at work,
I know this statement to be a completely absurd.
Work is work, no matter what they say
But I have been thinking on this for a while.
I think there are three ways of looking at a job:
There is the job at which you are the best;
There is the job from which you find the most joy;
There is the job that brings the most fulfillment.
If someone were to ask me a question straight-up,
Though I don’t know why they would do so,
Of what would you think is the perfect job,
I would probably respond with the following:
I am best at something analytical, mathematic, problem-solving –
Maybe a career in engineering as per my undergraduate degree.
I find the most fun in designing, innovating, creating –
Maybe a career in architecture or woodworking or construction.
I derive the most fulfillment from that which makes us human –
Listening to stories, seeing the spectrum of human emotion.
I find the last criterion to be the most important,
So perhaps that is why I ended up in the field of medicine,
As that covers all three, but especially the third.
At least that is what I tell myself now,
Driving back from a long day of work.
I’ll see what I think at 4 am tomorrow morning.
In rereading this snippet, I realize that I didn’t even mention that having a job serves to (hopefully) provide for one’s shelter, food, and other basic essentials. Perhaps this is too self-evident, maybe it’s a sign of subconscious privilege, or maybe both.
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