I Have No Dream Job

A common question that often comes up when making conversation is “what’s your dream job?”. And over the years, I’ve had many different answers. As a kid, it would be a firefighter or astronaut. In middle school, it would be a virologist or zoologist. In high school and college, it was being a software engineer or a teacher. 

But I’ve come to realize, I have no dream job. 

This by no means is a new revelation, but I’ve come to realize that for us, we work just to even survive. To acquire food or shelter or clothing, we need money. In order to earn money, we have to work in some way, shape, or form. Obviously, not all income is made equal, but that’s not the main point here. The point is that to even survive, we are basically forced to work. 

And I’m not really a fan of that. To think about being a corporate or capitalist slave for the next 40 years of my life just doesn’t sound all that appealing if I’m being totally honest. I’ve seen my dad work the same job for 17 years of life. I’ve seen how unhappy and stressed it has made him. And yet he still does it, for my family is depending on his work to stay alive. 

I remember seeing a quote that was posted on Instagram or Twitter a while back that said, “I do not dream of labor”. And that is a quote that has stuck with me since. And it’s because it’s true! I don’t really fantasize about working 40 hours at a huge tech startup. I don’t even dream about grading students’ homework and teaching three to five classes a day. 

And luckily for me, this isn’t just a me thing. A new trend in China is happening that is scaring the government. It’s called tang ping. And the concept of it is simple. It’s to just, chill. Tang ping means to just lie flat. Young people of China have no desire to work dreadfully long hours for their whole lives. They would rather just do enough to live so they can actually work on what they want. Whether it be art, cooking, or just vibing, it’s their choice. And there’s something so freeing in that. 

My whole life it’s always felt like there were two options. Work to live, or find life in my work. But what if we didn’t have to work? What if people were free to just do what they want? Would society as we know it crumble? Probably. But still, I wish there was more than just those two options. Why does everything we do have to be for the sake of money? Hell, even when picking a hobby, people advise picking something that can be profitable. Like why? A hobby is something that I want to do for myself for my own joy and entertainment. Why should I think about how I can use something for my personal entertainment to market and sell to the world so I can just keep living? Isn’t that cruel? 

That being said, I can’t lie that I’ve also been partially convinced into this entire schema of things. Part of me wants to make those Bid Daddy Bezos six-figure salaries even if it means going to an office for ⅓ of my life. Part of me wants to work my way up the ladder to becoming a manager or executive. It’s incredible how well marketed this whole system is, isn’t it? And to be honest, even after having said all this, I don’t know if I’ll do anything different. Part of me is too afraid to pick something away from the two options I mentioned earlier. But maybe that’s also just something the system instilled in me as well. We’ll see what happens. Stay tuned.