The article contained excellent advice for anyone  looking to begin as well
as change carriers.

Luis



At 10:16 AM 1/31/99 -0600, Kelly Pierce wrote:
>from the January issue of the Utney Reader=20
>  =20
>   How to Think Outside the Cube
>   13 ways to leave your lousy job
>  =20
>   OK. You've finally let the bitter truth seep into the part of your
>   brain that admits bitter truths. Your job sucks. The mere fact that
>   window envelopes with pretty checks in them arrive every two weeks is
>   not doing it for you anymore. You are becoming very good at the
>   thousand-yard stare, the long, unfocused look past your cubicle into a
>   green-and-gold world out there somewhere, a world that's passing you
>   by. Or perhaps you're so damned wiped out at the end of a day on the
>   assembly line, behind the cash register, or at the nurse's station
>   that the thousand-yard stare shrinks to six inches.
>  =20
>   Still, through it all you dare to dream. You dream of the job you love
>   so much you can't believe you're getting paid to do it. The perfect
>   match for your talents, habits, passions, and desire to make a
>   difference in the world. It flickers in and out of your awareness. How
>   do I get this job? you wonder, and then that plaintive question is
>   smothered by dark thoughts: Pipe dream. The economy is sliding. The
>   only real choice in the new millennium is between the burnout track in
>   corporate clonelandif you've been to college, that isand a stupefying
>   McJob.
>  =20
>   Now, I don't disagree with these staples of leftist pessimism. It's
>   bloody hard for most ordinary Americans to actually lead satisfying
>   lives under an economic system that portrays itself as the final form
>   of human felicity. Finding good workwork that both thrills and pays
>   the billsis a struggle for most of us. But if you put the right
>   spectacles on at the beginning, it can be a more joyous, revealing,
>   altruistic, fun, and even subtly subversive struggle than you might
>   think.
>  =20
>   The following ideas aren't conventional career counseling, which may
>   be what you need to make a small, sensible move inside the corporate
>   culture. But if you want to consider breaking out of the box
>   altogether, you'll have to look a lot harder and deeper, risking (and
>   delighting in) transforming your feelings about yourself and the
>   working world.
>  =20
>   Think big
>   Not only do you have a constitutional right to the pursuit of
>   happiness, but large goals are practical in a special way: If they
>   really belong to you, they have more power to get you off your butt
>   than "reasonable," "sensible," half-hearted ones do. So blurt 'em out.
>   Sure, for an overweight 47-year-old, dreaming of a career as a
>   professional gymnast is a little off the wallbut there's a truth
>   inside your dream that you ought to pry out. Maybe you won't go to the
>   Olympics, but can you see yourself doing something else triumphant and
>   physical in front of an audience? Can you immerse yourself in the
>   sports world in another way? The idea is to use the energy of your
>   deepest desiresreliable energyto make big changes.
>  =20
>   Be prepared to create your job
>   While you're thinking big, ask yourself if you're willing to create
>   your dream job if you can't "get" it any other way. And leave yourself
>   open to the idea of a collage of jobsfood writer, cooking workshop
>   leader, cook, restaurant consultant, saxophonist.
>  =20
>   List your truest values
>   What's most important to you? Releasing your creative energies? You
>   may think these things are foremost in your mind, but it's amazing how
>   easily they slip away. Scads of self-help books and articles can
>   provide you with values checklists, but my favorite comes from a
>   simple memory exercise: Recall your life's two or three best
>   momentswhen you did what you wanted and were utterly happy, at one
>   with the cosmos, in the groove, fulfilled. Write them down in detail,
>   on paper, then analyze them for content. Were you alone? Using your
>   body? Immersed in thought? In the country, or a foreign city? Now it's
>   easy: Your most important values are the concise statements of what
>   you liked about what you were doing.
>  =20
>   Look over the list daily
>   Put it somewhere where you can see it, reread it often, and test all
>   your pursuits against it. It just may warn you away from a gig that's
>   convenient, available, and nowhere near good enough.
>  =20
>   Tap the power of images
>   Clip images from magazines and paste them into a big, colorful
>   composite image of your ideal job and/or life. Or draw and paint them
>   yourself. You're not making fine art, you're creating a vision of your
>   dreams. Put this "map" where you can see it every day.
>  =20
>   Make firm commitments
>   Nicholas Lore, in The Pathfinder: How to Choose or Change Your Career
>   for a Lifetime of Satisfaction and Success (Fireside, 1998), writes,
>   "Nothing really spectacular will happen because you want it to or feel
>   passionately about it. It will happen only if you promise that it will
>   be so, and do what is necessary to keep your promise." The difference
>   between "I really ought to go back to school" and "I will enroll in a
>   Photoshop class by the end of the year" is clear.
>  =20
>   Take a small step every day=20
>   Call one friend who can help you focus your job search. Take one
>   self-help book off its shelf and put it on your desk. Write one vow or
>   affirmation in your notebook. Look up the number of your library's
>   business department and write it down. That's enough for Monday. On
>   Tuesday you'll call a second friend, read one chapter, write another
>   vow, and call the library. If you think this pace is paltry, wait and
>   see what you've accomplished in a week and compare it to a
>   "gotta-do-it-all" week of overambitious inaction.
>  =20
>   Cultivate calm and acceptance=20
>   I know it sounds wackyI mean, you're trying to get out of that
>   hellhole, right? But it's worth a try for several reasons. First of
>   all, a calm-as-possible approach to your less-than-perfect job, with
>   an eye toward being of service to your colleagues, may change your
>   mind about leaving in the first place. Not bloody likely? OK, then, it
>   will minimize stress and conserve precious energy while you look for
>   the next gig. Most important, it may actually make it likelier that
>   you'll really leave, especially if you've developed family-style
>   grudges against your bosses or co-workers. Deep resentment can hook
>   you in a nasty, interminable replay of family issues that has a
>   bizarre staying power and can actually magnetize you to your seat.
>  =20
>   Convene a Wise Persons Group=20
>   That's my pet name for a committee of friends who agree to help you
>   find job happiness. Pick a manageable but ample number of folks ( five
>   to 10) who know you, love you, and won't bullshit you. Include both
>   genders and as many different personal styles and points of view as
>   you can. (Don't invite family members; they're too likely to counsel
>   caution and make you self-conscious.) Invite them for coffee or dinner
>   and leave enough time for a good talk. Make your problems, desires,
>   and values clear to them, and ask for their frank assessment of where
>   you are and where you might go next. Not only will you get a stunning
>   amount of support and hear ideas you could never have come up with in
>   a million years, but you'll probably learn about aptitudes and
>   advantages that you've been hiding from yourself but are obvious to
>   people who care about you.
>  =20
>   Interview interesting people
>   This one is so simple it hurts. Seek out people who are doing what you
>   want to do and talk to them. Ask them how they got where they are, how
>   they spend the day, what they like and don't like about what they do.
>   Your image of that dream job will get sharper, you'll make allies for
>   the quest, and the idea that you really can have what you want will
>   brighten and solidify in your brain.
>  =20
>   Job hunt with everyone
>   Your helper network potentially includes everybody with whom you come
>   in contact. Make yourself alert for, and receptive to, help from odd
>   corners and unlikely people. Share your quest with the friendly coffee
>   jockey you chat up at your local caf=E9she may be a potter or
>   photographer or dancer who can hook you up with the art scene you're
>   dying to enter. A conversation on the bus could lead you to a business
>   venture you've never heard of.
>  =20
>   Lose the blue-collar complex
>   Were you one of those working-class kids whose parents warned you to
>   shut up, keep your nose clean, and keep punching the clockthe
>   not-so-subtle subtext being that real fulfillment on the job isn't in
>   the cards for the likes of us (i.e., you)? Well, you're as entitled to
>   great work as the laptop-and-cappuccino people. So what if you didn't
>   go to Harvard? You can go to the library, get on the Net, use the
>   phone, and build as good a network as they've got. And you're probably
>   hungrier and tougher than they are. Go for it.
>  =20
>   Develop a spiritual life=20
>   Your search for fulfilling work is a wager that, if you do your part,
>   the universe will provide what you need so that you can use your
>   energy meaningfully and joyfully. Spiritual and religious traditions
>   generally combine a doctrine of individual worth with a sense of
>   humility and awe before the paradoxical face of reality. A spiritual
>   life will help you feel the dignity of your quest and find meaning in
>   its twists, turns, stops, and starts. And leaving its outcome in the
>   hands of a power greater than yourself isking of paradoxesthe best way
>   to make sure you do your part, daily, toward your dream.
>  =20
>   Jon Spayde
>  =20
>   Jon Spayde is a contributing editor of Utne Reader, a journalism
>   teacher, and a fiction writer who is pursuing a long-repressed desire
>   to do performance art.
>
>
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