To be a nun or a director of I.T? Career advice they DON’T give you.

Bite Size Philosophy Lesson Three: 

So Forbes in their infinite wisdom of lists have published the top ten happiest jobs and the top ten most hated jobs which churned up a few debate topics…

Top Ten Happiest Jobs

1.     Clergy

2.     Fire Fighters

3.     Physical Therapists

4.     Authors

5.     Special Education Teachers

6.     Teachers

7.     Artists

8.     Psychologists

9.     Financial services sales agents

10.                        Operating engineers. (Boy toys i.e bulldozer and diggers.)

Top Ten Most Hated Jobs.

1.     Director of Information Technology

2.     Director of Sales and Marketing

3.     Product Manager

4.     Senior Web Developer

5.     Technical Specialist

6.     Electronics Technician

7.     Law Clerk

8.     Technical Support Analyst

9.     CNC Machinist

10.                        Marketing Manager

One of the aspect that stands out the most is the difference in salaries; the majority of the ‘happy jobs’ are obviously paid a lot less than the ‘hated jobs’ which generally seem to sit in higher pay brackets.

So what kind of question does this pose? Especially to us young people finding our feet in the working world; that you can either have happiness OR money? You can’t have both??

The number one happiest job is a clergyman which I’m sure can be taken in many different ways; firstly that although I want to be happy, I don’t think I want to be a nun to get there. (I’m not sure they’d have me to be fair..) Forbes’ take on the matter is that “the least worldly are reported to be the happiest of all.”

Ah. So believing in God makes you ‘less worldly’ now?

 I suspect the writer has missed the mark just slightly as people often do when the ‘G’ word is called into play. The point here is not a religious one; whether the god the clergyman has devoted his career to exists or not, isn’t the pivot whereby his happiness is decided. Looking at that happy list, you could argue happiness derives from actively participating in making a difference, supporting a community, being in some kind of close contact with others and most importantly- a point illustrated most noticeably with the clergyman- happiness come from doing something you believe in.

That’s the bones of it- passion is the worthy drive, you’ve got to believe what you’re doing is worth your time otherwise the pay check becomes compensation, and compensation is spent on things to make you feel good, because the job doesn’t quite hit the spot.

You have a class of young strong men and women, and they want to give their lives to something.  Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don't need.  Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy shit they don't really need.

~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

It’s worth noting that Forbes and their love of lists isn’t law- i.e. you could easily have one on those top ten most hated jobs and feel passionate about it, have total job satisfaction and happiness. You can indeed have the whole package- I’m sure someone like Richard Branson would agree. It’s not that you have to choose money or happiness, rather you have to choose how to navigate both into your life.

It’s an age old image that money is the root of all evil and true wealth doesn’t have the queen’s head on it. Personally, being a girl who is spiritual but essentially Essex, I disagree. Greed and selfishness are ugly, but a banknote itself hasn’t the capability to be greedy, it’s the hand clutching that does. What you decide to do with money and how you decide to obtain it is the key thing here. And contrary to belief, you do decide how to earn your money.

The formula is simple enough. Follow your passion, do something you actually like doing, have an interest in, a flair for, and you’ll want to work hard at it, do it for long hours, invest time and effort into it. You’re then likely to be good at it because not only have you worked hard, if it’s a passion of yours then the spark has come from somewhere, suggesting that underneath all that doubt, you’re probably naturally quite good at it. If your good at what you do for all of the above reasons, it’s more likely you’ll be successful and therefore make money if your eye is on the ball rather that on the clock, praying to that God that makes you ‘less worldly’ to make 5pm come quicker.

So why aren’t we all off gallivanting doing the things we love and being rich?

Painting/writing/talking/gaming/photographing/shopping/computing/ drawing… whatever it is in your life that would be too good to be true if you got paid to do it- that won’t get you that house deposit, it won’t let you get finance on a car, won’t get you a week in Ibiza or store card. It’s hard to go against the grain when the apparent route to happiness has already been laid down for you.

The trick is being brave enough to choose a different pavement. And don’t worry if you look around and find you’re the only one walking down it- it doesn’t mean you’re wrong, in fact it probably means you’re onto a winner. The big gamers in this life, whether you want to go all Steve Jobs, Branson, George Lucas or J.K Rowling here, they didn’t make money the same way Joe Bloggs in cubicle B does, they worked with their strengths and didn’t suppress or ignore them for not fitting into a more socially appropriate box.

So what do? (Apart from become a clergyman…)

Take time to find out what you really love doing. This may seem an odd suggestion, but it’s one we don’t tend to spend much time on as it doesn’t seem justifiable in terms of time and finances out there in the ‘real world.’ But the fact is you spend an insane proportion of your time in the pie-chart of life at work, so actually its quite wise to make an investment in figuring out what makes you tick, and even wiser to ignore all those who are impatient for your choice. Don’t let anyone hurry you into a conclusion. And when you think you’ve got there, remember there is no law that says you have to pick one job, one career and then stick to it faithfully until your 65.  (Which is lucky, as it’s a law I’ve joyful broken a fair few times already.)

 An education’s value when trying to weigh up consequent graduate employment rates or salaries might not be much to look at, but to take that dive, exploring something you have an interest and passion for- this is not time wasted, this is preparing the way. The waste is to throw the graduation hat into the air and jump into the first desk chair that slides your way for fear of missing the slip road onto the rat race.

To any pending graduates, any long-lost graduates, old and greying graduates, non graduates; sprint in the opposite direction of anybody drilling into your bright mind that you must go get a job any job there aren’t enough jobs be grateful for a job be responsible and never leave that job…

I don’t mean starve and not pay your bills. I mean don’t compromise. Because never forget, it’s your life your compromising with.

You've got to risk it to get the biscuit as they say and i'm not suggesting i've got a mouthful of custard creams over here, but knowing where the biscuit tin is, that's a good start....

#Check it out for yourself

See the Forbes article here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/09/12/the-ten-happiest-jobs/

Bite Size Philosophy Lesson Two: 'Go Smack Yourself in the Face with a Cliché'

Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.

This is what they call a cliché, an overused and wise phrase translating a clever little idiom into a saying that has been heard in one form or another too many times for it to mean anything to you anymore. You know what it’s trying to say so well you probably just skipped over those italics, your brain ticking the ‘ I know what that means’ box so fast, you probably didn’t even read it.

The trick with a cliché is to be able to deduct its meaning, because as with most truisms, they are, well, they’re true.

If I was asked to choose three words to describe this picture, I’d probably go for tranquil, green, natural. Maybe calming, peaceful and cool; the point being, it’s a nice picture and most people wouldn’t mind chilling out around some place like it for an afternoon away from the busy and stressful lives we seem to lead.

I took this picture. And I took this picture in Romford.

Yep, you heard me right, Romford.

Romford can be an ugly place if that is what you choose to see, and in all honesty, ugly is what jumps out at you without doing too much choosing. There’s a lot of concrete and cars, brightly lit shopping centres, supermarkets and B&Q’s (where wood comes from, as one of the kids in my class today told me authoritatively. He was genuinely flabbergasted when I told him that actually, it came from trees.)  

          New billboards sprout from the ground like weeds promising ‘delightful/stunning/beautiful one and two bedroom properties’ in every spare square inch and sometimes I think I can feel the ground suffocating. Or maybe it’s just me that can’t breathe.

          To find some space in a land where space has a profit margin can be tricky.  But I have a place that growing up around here for every concrete mixer that pours forth, for every first-time-buyer plan shoved down your throat, there are still a hundred trees worth of B&Q wood growing forgotten and left alone.

The Chase. On first glance, an unremarkable piece of land wedged between a YMCA and a learner drivers centre, houses looming either side up to the forest’s edge. My Dad would take us there as kids on Sunday afternoons, collecting interesting pieces of wood (I still don’t know what he means by that) and picking blackberries every September, me and my brothers dragging plastic buckets through the bushes and producing on average 24 pots of jams a year which then filled every inch of cupboard space, driving my poor mum crazy until the following April when it would finally run out.

 There’s a stream that runs right the way through from one end to the other, starting as the River Rom (where Romford gets it’s name from don’t you know) and trailing off into Harrow lodge park somewhere, and I have swam in that stream where it widens in the cover of the trees on a summer afternoon as a child with my friends, unfazed by rats and broken glass, being supervised by my dad who never did seem to have that built in danger radar that everybody else’s parent’s did. We, aged eight, thought this was brilliant.

The water trickles through stones and banks giving life to nettles, flowers and little shrubs, home to a jungle of birds so loud you can’t even hear the air traffic, trees growing around that line of beauty covering it completely from all buildings and generally, people. This for me, is my most favourite spot, because here on a little wooden bridge, it doesn’t matter which way you turn, you can’t see a single house or even hear the road, and you could be anywhere in the world but on the edge of Zone 6.

A huge black sewage pipe crosses the river bank over towards the YMCA, and looking at the height of it with adult eyes I shudder at the memory of me and my brothers walking across it as kids, arms balancing us like three small tight-rope walkers, fearless of the rocks and shallow water below, because Dad was standing at the other side, yelling ‘you won’t fall!” Parents are the Gods of childhood, all-seeing, all-knowing, all loving, and since he sounded pretty sure we weren’t going to slip and crack our heads open, we believed him. (I’m sure Mum would have disagreed...)

On a sunny day, you can guarantee that shopping centres will be jammed, beer gardens will be overflowing and you’ll be waiting for your food in The Harrow for at least 45minutes,  but this green bit of land with no signposts, it is always empty. I’ve never seen more than five or six people at a time from one end to the other, the odd person walking their dog in a hurry, the odd teenager on their bike up to no good in among the dark trees.

It wasn’t until the second or third time that I wandered through here that I realised the true joy of what I had discovered- I was in the middle of Romford. Romford. I was here, right here where I lived, which was somewhere pretty. My imagination didn’t need to do any work, I didn’t need to pretend I was in a faraway tranquil place- everything I wanted to see was right in front of my face.

It’s not about selective hearing or wishful thinking. I can choose whether to see Romford as an ugly place to live, or a pretty one because I can choose to walk through The Chase or down Upper Rainham Road. I can choose how I look at things. And that simple sentence, whether it’s regurgitated to me in a cliché, a bumper sticker, an Americanised self-help dvd, however it arrives at my feet, this is one of the most important skills I am ever going to try and learn.

This already may look like a small page of cliché ideas; nice-sounding but un-practical advice that you don’t see being applicable to your unfolding life. But the truth is every day is compilation of small decisions that physically shape the day you’re going to have, the life you are going to live, and it’s up to you what you do with this. It’s up to you whether you keep in your awareness your attitude, how you treat others and the environment you’ve put yourself in, or whether you just operate on a default setting. 


From when you either growl or smile at the guy at the ticket gate when your oyster card doesn’t work, when you decide to either mock or compliment that person you find difficult, when you decide whether or not to buy the beauty magazine that seems to do the opposite of making you feel beautiful, whether you walk on the road or through The Chase, these are the decisions that create your world; the world in front of your face, so do yourself a favour- choose carefully.

You get to choose how you think about things, the type of people you spend time with, what you read or don’t read. (No one is forcing you to read The Mail Online) You get to choose your job, it doesn’t choose you. You don’t owe it anything- on the contrary, your job owes you a pay check every month for doing it. But it is you that gets to decide whether to do that same job every day until your 65, or have 65 different jobs in your lifetime. Neither road is right or wrong, (whatever anybody tells you) but to dislike the one you’re walking along and do nothing about it most certainly is.

Life isn’t a series of events that come to pass with the same amount of fickle fortune and chance as the weather. You either find something beautiful, or you find something ugly. They both exist, and choosing one over the other doesn’t deny the other’s existence, but in choosing you are navigating yourself, plotting your route towards happiness or misery, towards average or extraordinary, and that choice never ends. It happens all day every day.

Take that job on like it’s the career opportunity of a lifetime. Because whatever your parents or your boss or your bank balance tell you, it’s the only career worth investing your soul into.

Check out the full set of images and more on Flickr 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/76711600@N06/