you don't want your dream job (yet)

How we sometimes picture how our professional lives will roll out:

 

After graduating from college, we'll land a sweet gig/dream job at a company or organization we love and with whom our values wholly align. 

 

OR, after college, we have graduate school. 

 

BUT once we're done with graduate school, THEN we'll land a sweet gig at a company or organization we love and with whom our values wholly align.

 

Nope.

  

Sorry not sorry for bursting this bubble, but it needs to happen. 

Don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying you'll never land that dream job. But right out after school? Odds are slim. And trust me: you would not want it that fast. Getting too much, too soon can often work against you.

So what'll it actually be like for you? You'll probably meander around in a few different roles, maybe for a few different organizations, before landing in a place where you can drop some roots. 

Like barnacles that attach to a ship hull, you'll pick up useful and random skills along the way that will help you to know. Some jobs won't be your dream setup, but for the time you have them, they'll serve some sort of useful purpose. You have more to learn. We continue gathering skills after college, slowly but surely adding to our professional (metaphorical) toolbox.

But why didn't your parents or family pass to you this nugget of reality and wisdom? 

 

It's probably a matter of innocuous timing. If your parents gave birth to you during this time of their lives, you were too young to remember its details and the grind. But ... if you came along after this time of their lives, then you grew up in the time of their professional journeys where they're a bit more settled; a bit less frenetic. Adult-ing comes in stages.

 

You don't want your dream job (yet) because you want to be ready for it when it does happen. You're not ready yet. You probably won't be ready for that job right out of school, and that's typical. The job will you have will have its fun parts and not-as-fun parts, and that's OK.

 

Having it too early would be like giving a baby an orange to eat. 

If they haven't yet grown teeth, they won't be able to enjoy the food.

 

The Biblical model of humans in life is NOT peaking in your 20's, and then a gentle downhill slope from there. It's growing slowly but surely, and peaking much, much later.

So please: adjust your mindset, and your pace. You're running a marathon -- not a sprint -- and you're only two miles in. Pace yourself, see what's around you. You've got a ways to go. You've got stuff yet to learn. That's how it should be.