It’s tough to figure out what to do with your life sometimes. As an adolescent, you might speak to a guidance counselor about it. They might talk with you about the things you enjoy doing and where your academic strengths lie.
When you get out of high school, you can figure out whether you want to go to college or not. If you do go, and you get a degree, that can help you quite a bit as you get ready to enter the job market. Perhaps you’ll stay and get a Master’s Degree or Doctorate.
Regardless of what education level you reach, at some point, you’ll begin a career. You pretty much have to, unless you’re independently wealthy, and not many people can say that.
The career on which you decide to embark can directly impact your lifestyle and outlook in many ways. Let’s look at a few ways your career affects your life.
It Can Frustrate You
It could be that you took a job that you don’t care for very much. Maybe when you work, you feel pressured to meet unreasonable deadlines. Perhaps you don’t like your boss or coworkers.
However, you felt like you had to take the position because:
- You couldn’t find anything else
- This job pays more than any prospect you could find
You shouldn’t ever judge someone because of the job they work. They might not be able to find anything else or have the education or aptitude to get something more glamorous or higher profile.
If you find you’re in a position where you don’t much like your job, you might consider doing anything you can to find something else. Working for years at a job you hate wears you down from an emotional and psychological standpoint.
Eventually, you might find that it puts you in such a bad mood all the time that you lash out at your friends or loved ones.
It Can Give You Purpose
It could also be that you find a job and career that you love. Maybe you’re doing something that:
- Makes the world a better place
- Helps animals, humans, or the environment
No two individuals will have the same dream job. One person might love nothing more than being an astrophysicist, while someone else might love working at McDonald’s.
What matters isn’t so much what the job is, but the way it makes you feel. If you love going in to work every day, that’s the most critical thing.
It Can Make You Lots of Money, or Not So Much
Humans make money through work, unless you’re volunteering or something along those lines. You can make more money doing some jobs than others.
It’s all about what skill set you have. Not every person has the aptitude to do every job.
You might find a job and career path that makes you a ton of money. If so, that will directly impact your lifestyle. You can take lavish vacations, buy a yacht, or do whatever else makes you happy.
Perhaps you love your job, but you make very little money doing it. This can be a tricky situation because you feel fulfillment, but you don’t have the money to get ahead.
You can make this work if you don’t care about material possessions. However, it’s a simple fact that you can’t do some of the things a wealthy person could. In some ways, your life has more limitations.
You Can Advance, or Not
It’s also worth mentioning that there are jobs, and there are careers, and they’re not always the same thing. Let’s say that you make money as a scrapper. You drive a beat-up old truck around the neighborhood, and you collect loose metal, which you then sell to scrap yards.
You might make money this way, and so you can call it a job. At the same time, you can’t work your way up to an executive scrapper position. It doesn’t exist.
You won’t have any healthcare from such a job, and there are no advancement opportunities. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. You just have to understand that this is not a career path you can take that will lead to more money, more prestige, a 401k plan, etc.
You’ll need to think about all of these things as you enter the job market. Ideally, you’ll find a position that makes you happy and allows you to live the lifestyle you want.
