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My Utopian Career 1

Everyone around me knows how much I love my career. It’s challenging, I’m constantly problem-solving, it’s rewarding to see something I’ve built come to fruition, the jobs are relatively plentiful, and the industry pays well.

But what if I could have any job in the world? What would I choose to do?

Well I’ve put a lot of thought into this. At first the typical careers come to mind: I’d be a pilot, or own a restaurant. Sometimes I even think it would be fun to deliver mail by foot, or be a police officer on a bicycle or horse.

Then I start to think about what’s important to me, and I think I would love to be a city planner from an environmental angle. Han’s father does this in China. He researches other cities around the world and makes recommendations for his city about what type of transit systems to implement, how the infrastructure should be built in order to accommodate pedestrians and cars. In a developing city in China, this would be a great job. I would love to be able to have that kind of impact on a developing city’s future.

A good way to narrow your list down is to first make a list of activities you love to do (work, school, reading, writing, kayaking, biking, etc.). Then rank each of these activities in order of personal importance.

When it comes down to it, the top 5 activities that are most important to me are the following (In order of importance): 1) Environment 2) Learning 3) Writing 4) Physical activity 5) Technology

If I could combine all 5 of those activities and make a career out of it, that would be my ideal career. So what would that career entail you ask? I’ll tell you what that career would entail:

My ideal career would be writing full-time for The Urban Country. If I could earn a living from The Urban Country, I’d spend my 8-12 hours a day in the field researching for new stories. I’d follow around a homeless person for a week, work on a farm for a month, travel to New Guinea, kayak the St. Lawrence River, bicycle across China, research new environmentally-friendly methods of transportation in Japan, follow a prominent CEO around for a week. And I would write about all of these experiences.

It would be The Urban Country on steroids. The limited research I do for most of my current articles would turn into days of research and field work, combining my 5 most important activities (environment, learning, writing, physical activity and technology).

Being outside, meeting new people, learning and writing; what more could I ask for? With a little bit of determination and sacrifice, I could realistically achieve this goal in the next 5 years. Only time will tell.

One comment on “My Utopian Career

  1. Crankyputz Jan 5,2009 4:28 am

    It’s funny how figuring out what you want to do is half the battle, good for you on taking the time to understand what’s important to you….here’s wishing you a fruitful 2009…

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