Can't Even
As I am pondering my future and my mortality, and this quote from Anne Helen Petersen’s Can’t Even really hit home.
I don’t want a career. I just want a job that won’t drive me crazy and leave me with energy for what I really want to do.
One of the pernicious assumptions of “Do what you love” is that everyone who’s made it in America is doing what they love—and conversely, everyone who’s doing what they love has made it. If you haven’t made it, you’re doing it wrong: “Central to this myth of work-as-love is the notion that virtue (moral righteousness of character) and capital (money) are two sides of the same coin,” Tokumitsu explains. “Where there is wealth, there is hard work, and industriousness, and the individualistic dash of ingenuity that makes it possible.”
Where there is not wealth, this logic suggests, there is not hard work, or industriousness, or the individualistic dash of ingenuity. And even though this correlation has been disproven countless times, its persistence in cultural conditioning is the reason people work harder, work for less, work under shitty conditions.
When that cool, lovable job doesn’t appear, or appears and is unfeasible to maintain for someone who’s not independently wealthy, it’s easy to see how the shame accumulates.
You know what I love? Not being defined by my career.
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