Milo Nguyen @silverkoolaid
When I was in the first grade, I was obsessed with “American Idol.” American Idol Halloween Costumes (Only ruined by my mom’s insistence that I layer up for modesty and warmth), and I hung a Kelly Clarkson magazine poster on my bedroom wall and kissed her goodnight (which, in retrospect, must have been the inspiration for my later discovery).
Far from the scrutiny I’d endured since childhood about my body and the unashamed queerness I’d embraced as a child, my dream job was to be a singer. Imagine that: the fame, the money, the attention.
As I grew up, American Idol’s ratings plateaued, and I moved from dream to dream. None of them were particularly lucrative or realistic (I want to be a journalist, after all), but I watched my peers’ dream jobs go from astronaut to accountant, from dolphin trainer to dental hygienist. Not that I mind crunching numbers and brushing teeth, something had changed.
There are two cultural messages that don’t necessarily go together: chasing your passion and chasing the check. And we feel pressured to achieve both through our “dream job” – a job that fulfills an individualistic, American view of success that hinges on a flimsy meritocratic logic. All your future time and energy will be focused on your career, so this job has to bring you joy. To make matters worse, your life literally depends on this career. From food to housing to healthcare, we live to work and work to live. Personally, I would never dream of living my life around my career.
“We have a distorted view of success, and we have a very hard time reaching that view,” said Margaret O’Mara, a history professor at the University of Washington.
Capitalism conflates money with success. In neoliberal, “pay-for-yourself” countries, we understand that to earn money you have to work hard. But because of generational wealth and other advantages that some people are born with, the same work doesn’t necessarily lead to the same results.
“The stories of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg often overlook the fact that they all got into this industry with some advantages. Elon Musk’s family is very wealthy and Mark Zuckerberg’s parents gave him the start-up capital to start Facebook,” O’Mara said.
And because of the way we’ve conceptualized, worshipped, and propagated the “American Dream,” we believe this success is what fulfills our destiny as a people entrenched (consciously or not) in American culture. Work gives you a sense of fulfillment. These ideals keep you in the wheel, and even make you excited about being a wheel.
Preston Sahab, a graduate student at the University of Washington, was no longer feeling fulfilled in his high-paying job.
A love of math led Sahab down the path of programming, as he enrolled directly into a computer science program during college.
“I became increasingly disillusioned with the industry,” Sahab said. “Capitalism drives us towards what makes money, not what we need. I wanted to do something more meaningful.”
He returned to the University of Washington to earn his master’s degree in transportation engineering, hoping to find career fulfillment by making a more direct impact on people’s lives.
“To me, success is about what my work does for other people. Improving bus routes to make them a few minutes faster can really improve a lot of people’s lives,” Sahab says. “In a capitalist environment, a successful life is associated with having a middle-class professional job and owning your own home, but it’s what you get out of your work that matters.”
Whether you’re typing code or improving public transportation, you’re dedicating your life to this profession. The idea of a “dream job” is an attempt to soften the blow of spending most of your adult life working 40-hour weeks. You might as well have fun.
O’Mara says this attitude dates back to the 1960s, during the Vietnam War protests, when young people did everything they could to rebel against convention: growing their hair long, taking drugs, joining communes. For some, rebellion was simply about doing what they loved.
“The way we look at work has changed,” O’Mara says. “Work used to be an economic activity that you did to get economic gain, and you just went to work and went home.”
Recent University of Washington graduate Regan Miedema changed her field of study to do what she loves, not what’s safe.
“I went to college as a nursing major but quickly realized I wanted to get into politics,” Miedema said. “The health care system is in such a bad state, so rather than being a cog in the machine, I wanted to go into politics and make a meaningful difference in health care.”
Miedema realized that while the work of a nurse is important, it wouldn’t fully satisfy her, even if it offered a more direct path from education to career. Regardless of what impact Miedema could make in either profession, following her passion comes with the risk of taking a pay cut.
When personal fulfillment trumps financial gain, opportunities for abuse and exploitation arise.
“They say if you do what you love you’ll never have to work in your life, but no, work is definitely work,” Sahab said.
Think about teachers. They are raising the next generation and doing it on a shoestring. But when budget cuts are added to their already-meager salaries, people are quick to tell these workers, “They don’t work for the money,” as if passion were a substitute for a paycheck.
Whether you go into the field to feed your soul or your wallet, you have to eat.
“We see time and time again that civil rights are secured because working-class people work hard,” O’Mara said. “The virtue of work is a hallmark of American culture.”
Food, water, shelter and even healthcare are basic necessities that can only be repaid if you earn enough money. You have to earn a living. Work is more than a source of income or happiness. It is a matter of life and death.
In a society where you have no choice but to work 40+ hours a week, where two late paydays mean losing your home, and where you are not entitled to affordable healthcare if you don’t have a job, it doesn’t matter what motivates you: do what you love, or what makes you money, but most importantly, do it. The system doesn’t care about your pleasure.
Perhaps we call it our “dream job” to free ourselves from the inevitable exploitation and dissatisfaction.
If you’re not driven by passion, you might get bought. If you’re not driven by money, you might get driven by inspiration. If you’re not driven by either, you die.
I never got the golden ticket to American Idol. That dream is long gone. Now I just want to earn enough money to buy candles and a plaid skirt and go to Sedona with my friends someday. Oh, and I want to write. I want to do that too. Dreams shouldn’t be limited to capitalistic endeavors.
I don’t have a “dream job” – it’s just propaganda to make us believe that productivity and making money is our purpose. There are no easy solutions because the game frames us to be in this normative lifestyle, but if you pursue a career, whether for money or passion, never beat yourself up about how to deal with the oppression of capitalism.
Contact Engagement Editor Hannah Krieg at [email protected]. Twitter: @Hannahkrieg
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