“在当今物质繁荣的世界，我们不仅希望通过自己的劳动获得金钱，我们或多或少也希望从中找到生命的意义和满足感。”
笔者最近经历了一次事业方向的大调整，和不少朋友交流后，发现对于事业的困惑是大家或多或少都有的。回想我调整事业的期间，这本由一位当代英国哲学家写的How to find a fulfilling work给了我很多启发。其中涉及到了对事业选择感到迷茫的普遍性，女性如何看到家庭和职业的选择，以及如何实际的去探索潜在的最能实现个人抱负的工作等。其内容总结了各家之言，又有作者独特的观点，有很强的说理性，但又并不流于空洞的理论，而是落实到实际的操作建议中。
在此也向大家大力推荐这本书。大家可以在Amazon,或者Audible.com购买电子书或电子音像书。
这次和大家分享的是由书中的部分内容制作的一段视频。为了方便不能立即观看视频的朋友，其中英文文字稿如下。
如何找到实现个人抱负的工作
How to find fulfilling work
直到最近，人们才意识到工作不仅仅是痛苦和必要的，它还可以实现个人抱负。翻开1755年著名的Johnson博士词典，实现个人抱负（fulfillment）这个词甚至还没有出现。在当今物质繁荣的世界，我们不仅希望通过自己的劳动获得金钱，我们或多或少也希望从中找到生命的意义和满足感。这是一个很高的要求，也帮助解释了为什们那么多人会在周日傍晚，太阳将要下山时，遭遇职业危机。这里有六个有用的想法可以帮助你找到实现个人抱负的工作：
第一，接受对于事业选择的困惑是非常正常的
在工业时代以前，最多只有2000多种不同的职业。而现在，据估算有50万种不同的职业选择。其结果就是：我们过于焦虑，担心做错误的选择，以至于不做任何选择。心理学家称这为“选择的悖论”，即由过多的选择产生的无力感。我们应该认识到，对职业的困惑是自然的，对错误选择的恐惧也是完全正常的。但不要让它们永远浇熄了我们的机会。
第二，了解自己
了解自己是最古老的哲学建议，对于事业选择也有特别相关。对于99%的人而言，我们并不是自然而然就知道我们想做什么。比如，知道要吃什么。我们大多数人没有人生使命的召唤。我们不会在心中听到一个指令般的声音指引我们去从事会计，包装业或者分销业。这并不是说我们没有个人的品味或偏好，只是我们并不明确的知道。而这是个危险的处境，因为没有计划会让我们很快受有计划者的支配。
我们只能隐约了解我们的品味和倾向。所以我们要做的就是学会尽快找到他们微弱的迹象：而第一步是将对于金钱的顾虑先放在一边；经济方面的恐惧经常阻止人们与自己更真实和充满人生热情的一面的沟通。写下所有你喜欢做和创作的事，不用过于逻辑性和分析性。这可能包括建一栋树屋，整理冬季的衣服。列表上的事物越奇怪，越不寻常，越好。在这又长又困惑的纠结之后的某个阶段，紧跟着的就是一个找到理想未来工作的个人雏形，但这仍然非常混乱，需要彻底分析。这是需要哲学的地方；哲学是清理思路的艺术，在我们的第一反应中寻找逻辑。
第三，大量思考
如果，人们会用好几天，甚至一周，来挑选一辆新车，那么用一年或者持续每天思考来认定一个适合的事业也是公平的. 但人们总是为自己过于沉浸于个人世界而感到愧疚。恰恰相反, 我们需要腾出几个月的周末来解决生活中最大的难题。为了确保我们不继续将余生奉献给一份我们在懵懂无知的16岁时笨拙选择的工作,我们需要慷慨的花时间来思考。
第四，尝试
想像我们能够仅仅凭反思就能勾勒出理想工作场所和我们的性格，这样的想法是很吸引人的，但我们需要数据。只有通过与现实世界碰撞，我们才能理解自己和他人。在这个过程中，理解世界和我们自己的本性。我们需要采取小而灵活可变的步骤来搜集信息，比如：做学徒，实习或志愿者。我们不用认为我们必须在周一就辞职。我们可以在保有现有工作的同时，通过分支项目为我们的未来事业调研。
第五，反思人们不快乐的因素
每一个成功的生意本质都是尝试为他人解决问题。问题越大，越紧急，机遇越大。锻炼你的创业肌肉，想想每天所有事中，哪些会使人们不快乐：从掉了房门钥匙，到油腻的食物，甚至与配偶争论。每一个都是一个等待被挖掘的商业机会。这对于我们个人都是服务的机会，而这也是工作的本质。你很容易认为所有事情都已经有人做了，或者被尝试过了－胡扯。我们的不快乐程度足以使资本主义有几世纪的发明和创造
第六，有自信
很多糟糕的自救书是关于自信的。这很容易使人忽略这整个话题，认为其为胡扯。但是从一个特别而谦虚的角度来说，似乎成功和失败的差距有时只是尝试的勇气。想象自己未来角色的能力并不需要其他人的许可。很多顶层的职位仅仅属于那些敢于大胆要求的人。缺乏自信的根本是对世界运行方式的误解。缺乏自信是一种内化的封建主义，认为只有一部分人而不是他自己有权，注定得到有些东西。而这并非是事实。正如我们所知，一切可能比胆小和存疑时刻的我们想象的要好的多。而这也是我们通向理想事业的开端，一份我们在死时也不会后悔的事业，而这也应该总是我们选择事业的终极标准。
The idea that work might be fulfilling, rather than just painfully necessary, is a strikingly recent invention. Open Dr. Johnson's celebrated dictionary, published in 1755, and the word fulfillment doesn't even appear. Nowadays in a prosperous world, we don't only expect to obtain money through our labor, we also, to a greater or lesser extent, expect to find meaning and satisfaction. It's a big ask and helps to explain why so many of us have career crises often on a Sunday evening as the Sun begins to set. To help us on the quest for fulfilling work here are six useful ideas:
Firstly, accept the being confused aboutcareers is perfectly normal.
In a pre-industrial world there were, at most,some 2,000 different trades out there; nowadays there' are estimated to be half a million different options. The result: we can become so anxious about making the wrong choice, we end up making no choice at all; psychologists call this”the paradox of choice”, paralysis stemming from too many options. We should acknowledge that confusion is natural, and fear entirely normal; but let neither of these scupper our chances forever.
Secondly, know yourself.
It's the oldest philosophical recommendation, and has particular relevance to careers. For 99%of us knowing what we want to do doesn't arise spontaneously; like for example, knowing what to eat. Most of us don't have a calling; we don't hear a commanding god-like voice directing us to accountancy, or packaging and distribution. That isn't to say we don't have taste or inclinations, we just don't know them clearly enough, which is a perilous position to be in, as not having a plan quickly puts us at the mercy of those who do have one.
We only catch glimpses, little hints of our tastes. So what we have to do is learn to pick up on their faint sounds: start by parking any concerns for money for a time; financial panic too often killsall dialogue with the more authentic, passionate sides of one's nature. Write down, without being too logical or analytical about it, everything you've ever enjoyed doing or making, which might include building a tree-house, or sorting out the winter clothes.
The weirder and more offbeat list, the better. In the long and confused tangle that follows there will, somewhere, be the shape of an ideal future working self, but it'll be very messed up, and in need of being analyzed thoroughly. That's where philosophy comes in; philosophy is the art clearing up, and demanding logic of our first thoughts.
Thirdly, think a lot.
If it might take a couple of days, even a week, to choose a new car, it could, fairly, take a year or more of sustained daily reflection to start to identify a career that fits. We tend to feel guilty about this: imagining we're being self-indulgent. Far from it, we may need to empty every weekend for months to sort out the biggest conundrum of our lives. To make sure we don't continue to spend the rest of our lives trapped in a job unwittingly chosen for us by our unknowing 16 year old selves, we need to be properly generous about the amount of time we'll need to give this.
Fourthly, try something.
It's tempting to imagine we'll be able to work out the shape of the workplace, and of our own characters simply through pure process of reflection, but we need data, and we can only understand ourselves and others by colliding with the real world, in the process getting to know both it and our own natures. We need to take small, non-irrevocable steps to gather information, for example by: shadowing, interning, or volunteering. We mustn't think we always have to resign on Monday; we can investigate our futures through branching projects on the side of existing jobs.
Five, reflect on what makes people unhappy.
Every successful business is at heart an attempt to solve someone else's problem; the bigger and more urgent problem, the greater the opportunity. To flex your entrepreneurial muscles, consider an average day and everything in it that might make someone unhappy: from losing the house keys, to finding the food a little greasy, to arguing yet again with their spouse. Each of these is a business opportunity waiting to be exploited; it's a chance for us to serve, which is what work really is. It's easy to imagine that everything's been done and tried. Nonsense. We're unhappy enough for capitalism to have many more centuries of invention and creativity to it.
Six, be confident.
So many bad self-help books are about confidence; it can be tempting to dismiss the whole topic as nonsense; but in a peculiar and rather humbling way, it really does seem as if the difference between success and failure is sometimes nothing less than the courage to give it a go. The ability to imagine oneself into a role, to surmise one doesn't need to ask anyone for permission that many of the top positions simply belong to those who dare to boldly ask for them. A lack of confidence is at heart a misunderstanding of the way the world works; it's an internalized feudalism, which imagines that only certain people but not oneself, have the right, preordained, to get certain things. It isn't true. As we know, a lot more is possible than we might think at our moments of timidity and doubt. That's a start of the path towards a job we won't regret on our deathbeds, which should always be the ultimate criterion.
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