My Dream Job

I finished reading Quiet by Susan Cain and it brought up the point that a lot of introverts (which I consider myself to be) are so used to repressing their natural instincts that when they grow up they often find themselves in professions that they don’t enjoy and that don’t suit their temperaments.  She had a few tips on how to find what you really want to do, but the one that stuck out to me the most was the question, “Who are you jealous of?”  Career-wise anyway.  Jealousy is an ugly emotion but what if you used it to tap into what you really want to do?  I’d never thought of that before.  So I did some thinking and came up with people who’s jobs I’m jealous of.  I’m jealous of authors and book editors and my husband’s job.  I had to sit down and think about the reasons.

I’m jealous of authors because of the book tours they get to go on.  I love the idea of traveling.  I love going new places.  Let’s be honest though.  I don’t have to be an author to travel.  Plus if I travel for fun I don’t have to give presentations.  The reality of traveling for work is probably more along the lines of this:

and not this:

I stand in terror of the idea of giving an author presentations, but if I overcame stage fright for my piano playing I could do it for being an author as well.  I love writing, but I’m not the kind of person that is just bombarded with ideas that I want to turn into books.  I think I could be an author someday if I studied the craft of writing a novel a little more, but I have a feeling that coming up with a story will be a lot of work that might not come naturally to me, which I don’t have the time or motivation to do right now.

I’m jealous of book editors because I love critiquing books.  I think I could do well as a book editor because, after reading a job description, I found that they also do a little financial work to keep projects on task and are involved with the marketing.  That job just sounds so awesome to me.  I majored in finance in college and I feel like I could do a great job with understanding marketing trends with my experience as a book blogger.  There are some problems with this dream job.  I have no experience as an actual editor and most of the jobs are in New York.  Utah does have a few small publishers that I could work for but they don’t always publish the kinds of books that I’m interested in reading.  As cool as the job sounds, it seems like being an editor is less reading and editing books and more group/project work which doesn’t appeal to me quite as much, though I think I could do it and do it well.  The thing that I love the most about the idea of being an editor is reading tons of books and critiquing them.  When I said that to myself, I had to laugh.  Because reading tons of books and critiquing them is exactly what I do now as a book blogger.

Is it possible that I am doing my dream job right now and I just didn’t see it before? I think the answer is yes.

And when I sat down and really thought about it, I saw other reasons that being a book blogger was my dream job. I get to work on a computer which is what my husband does all day and the reason I’m jealous of his job.  He works on computer databases which I would never want to do, but for some reason I love working on a computer and I always wonder if he knows how lucky he is to work on a computer all day long.  I love that as a book blogger, I don’t have anyone bossing me around or telling me what to do.  I read, write, and say whatever I want with no one to answer to.  It’s flexible.  I can work as much or as little as I’d like.  I’m passionate about this.  When will I ever get tired of talking about books?  Apparently never.  I don’t get paid a dime to do this.  In fact, I actually spend money on this dream job of mine.  Which brings me to my only complaint about being a book blogger.  I don’t actually get paid.  Is it still a job/career if I don’t get paid?  I think it is.  Though it did bring up the idea that maybe someday I could be a professional book reviewer for a site like Kirkus.  They hire free lance book reviewers and I could do essentially what I do now but get paid for it.  The down side to that being that I would then have a boss of sorts and I would lose some freedom.  So considering that getting paid is not an essential requirement for a career, I think it’s safe to say that I have my dream job right now.  And maybe some day, when I’ve got more time and I’m ready to move on from book blogging, I could be a professional reviewer.  After being a professional reviewer for a while, I could take writing classes and become an author.

I’m glad I’ve figured out what I want to be when I grow up since I’m turning 30 next week.

What is your dream job? Have you ever asked yourself the question, “Whose job am I jealous of?”  I’d love to hear your answers!