These past few weeks, I have felt a shift in my approach to things. For a long time, I had been wrestling with this change, which stems from the privilege I felt that I was born with.
I am a middle-class (mostly) white male that comes from an educated family with loving and supportive parents to boot. I have not ever had to go hungry at home or wonder if I was going to have a roof over my head to sleep under. I have never been in an abusive relationship with anyone and I do not find myself bound to any deleterious addictions. I will complete my undergraduate education relatively debt-free. I have been fortunate enough to travel abroad and throughout our country. I feel blessed in every sense of the word. My movement towards the realization of my privilege in the past year or so had really thrown me for a loop.
I have heard a smorgasbord of career advice, but one stood out to me. "Do what you love, love what you do". It is the tried-and-true maxim of so many of those aspiring to happiness through their work. It seems to be the dream, waking up and not fearing to go work.
And this aphorism has seemed ubiquitous among the people that surround me, who also tend to come from privileged backgrounds as well.
"Do what you love, love what you do".
The current mindset arising from this quote, rather than the quote itself, perplexed me. Who was I to be able to do what I love for a job, when there are so many others my age struggling in a mire of student loan debt and the like? What principle justifies the allowance for my pursuit my passions while others just have to settle for making ends meet? Hell, who was I to ponder this issue on a blog in the summer months while so many others are out in the heat, busting their asses to stay afloat? These continued questions led to a moment of clarity: This entitled attitude towards work - that it should be more so leisure than actual work - was just an extension of thought by that privileged subsection of people, myself included.
Being completely honest, it depressed me for a little bit. I emphasize "a little bit" because I think I am an annoyingly bubbly and optimistic person at heart. But then, I was able to move past that initial, despairing realization into something that I could actually apply to myself.
"I am privileged to be where I am, and taking that into consideration, I will strive to appreciate all the moments I am working, because I know that it could be a whole lot worse. By the same token, I will try to work to improve the lives of those that are less fortunate than I, because I think that they deserve better".
(As a caveat, I do not think my life is solely work, it just so happens that we have to do it to make our way).
Now that quote may not make it into any list of truths anytime soon, but it works for me. And I hope that if you stumble upon this, you take something from it too.
