The Four Hundred

In all the years that Ward Cleaver "went to the office," we never actually found out what he did there. Whatever it was, it appeared to be steady and none too taxing. No need for a nightly pitcher of martinis. Old Ward made it home at a decent hour, never complained about his management, didn't fret about the Beaver's college fund or the cost of June's new vacuum cleaner, and had enough money left over to keep Wally in Brylcream.

Maybe Ward had nothing to say about his profession because men of his generation were content to trade personal fulfillment for the security of a predictable job. Hook up with a decent company and you could work there until retirement or your first heart attack. Women, of course, were discouraged from entering the paying workforce and had to settle for having a coronary while lugging the Kirby up the stairs. Not anymore.

Although most people now work outside the home, the likelihood of lifetime employment is about as dubious as an Eddie Haskel compliment. To make matters worse, IT professionals face a higher degree of career instability than mere mortals because computer technology is a perpetually moving target. Just about the time you zero in on it, it morphs into something new, turning today's experts into tomorrow's novices. Skills that were considered so crucial just yesterday lose value faster than the shrinking dollar. Get tired enough of being the hamster on the technology wheel and you may be ready for a career change.

There is certainly no harm in considering it, because even keeping up with the latest operating system and demonstrating Cleaver-like constancy to your employer will not secure your station indefinitely. For any number of reasons, from new management to economic recession, you can find yourself downsized, rightsized, layed off, separated, terminated, discharged, or reorganized out of a job. A career change may be voluntary or compulsory, but like many a bitter pill it can end up being good for you if you manage to choke it down.

If fact, you'd best prepare for several career changes. People who study such things estimate that a person entering the workforce today will have four to six careers before retiring. But the issue goes beyond surviving technological oscillation and economic uncertainty. The reality is that folks today, unlike people of Ward's generation, no longer have a 40-year attention span. Only those who lack imagination or initiative are willing to stay stuck in a dead-end job. The rest of us seek to realize our creative potentials. We may endure the ritualized boredom of office routine, but privately we cringe at the prospect of draining our life's energy performing pointless tasks. We want growth, challenge, and meaning, and have come to embrace the relatively new and unprecedented notion that we deserve to be professionally happy and fulfilled. Why, then, do so many people work so long at jobs for which they have no passion?

It was Abraham Lincoln who said, "My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it." But if to love our work is what we wish, the only way we can expect to respond to 40 years of labor with affection is to do something that gives our lives meaning and purpose. For each person there is a unique calling that replenishes his life energy rather than depletes it, an occupation that exalts the spirit rather than deadens it. But finding it can be a quest of Homeric proportions, since much of our training and upbringing aligns against the possibility of joy. A quick mental survey of our parents, teachers, and coworkers would probably identify very few who could be described as joyous and passionate about their work.

Those who already feel impassioned about their profession are indeed blessed. Most people are too busy working to discover what their passion is. Or, if they have one, they dismiss it from career consideration and relegate it to hobby status because it doesn't pay enough.

For those who have not yet identified their life's work, there are few guidelines or mentors to assist with the search. No one taught us how to unearth our passion in school, or even discussed the value of doing so. "Discover What Gives Your Life Meaning and Purpose" is not among the requirements for an undergraduate degree. Get to the advanced age of 25 and people will strenuously urge you to get a job—any job—and will not care if the work isn't personally fulfilling. As long as you have an income stream, you are expected to be a contented consumer. There was a reason June never asked Ward, "Are you happy at work, dear?" It wasn't an issue.

Sooner or later, however, most of us will ask ourselves if the work we are doing is worthy of the irreplaceable investment of our life force. Is the compensation—not just monetary, but intellectual and spiritual—sufficient to justify our time and the application of our talents? Is the product we create or the service we provide of genuine value to others?

The Buddhists have a wonderful term for worthy work: "right livelihood." It implies not merely making a living, but making a life. It also suggests doing something that facilitates personal enlightenment and is of service to others. It is the type of work that has the power to transform us as we practice it. But whether done from a Buddhist desire for enlightenment and service, or Ayn Rand's belief in rational self-interest, the impact of career choice on personal health and happiness cannot be overstated. Imagine working 40 years at something that feeds your wallet but not your spirit. We see the results of such choices all around us: addictions, anger, broken relationships, lives led in resentful resignation.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who has done extensive work with the dying, reports that people facing death often voice two regrets: not being who they really were and not doing what they really wanted to do. But if people were willing to suppress their essence for a lifetime, what was it that kept them stuck? Certainly life circumstances saddle some of us with crushing obligations. Yet others with more range of choice are also unable to find the courage to take appropriate action.

Two of the major contributors to inertia, as identified by occupational psychologists, are unfounded fear and excessive comfort. Fight or flight is not the only response to acute fear. The other option is to freeze, do nothing, and hope the danger passes. A no-action alternative is often considered safer than stepping into the unknown. Likewise, addiction to comfort results in creative immobility. An endless procrastination loop develops, where delay always asks for more delay. When life finally becomes comfortable and easy to manage, there is little reason to introduce risk and uncertainty. Therefore, for change to occur, the fear must be assuaged or the comfort withdrawn. A person must feel safe enough to make a career move or conditions at the present place of employment have to become intolerable enough to force a change.

Changing careers, especially in mid-life, can indeed be daunting. There are obligations, security concerns, and an existing lifestyle to support. While fear is a natural reaction, psychologists note that it typically precedes an actual event and is therefore largely made up. Fear becomes a bad movie about all of the things that may go wrong in the future that is replayed over and over in our minds until it seems real. It is the anticipation of disaster, not an event itself, that most often stops us from getting what we want.

While there is no antidote to fear, awareness of how much of our anxiety is self-induced will help make career decisions based on actual concerns, not imagined ones.

The primary consideration when contemplating a career move is earning potential. Will the new job pay the rent, make the car payment, feed the family? Although changing careers often initially requires taking a pay cut, no matter how esoteric the occupation, be assured there are plenty of other people making a living at it. Contact them and learn from their experience. The Internet can be a handy resource for connection and support as you research your chosen field.

Assuming a pay cut is a likely outcome of a career move, the question then becomes, how much do I really need? A number of people I know who have made mid-life career changes report that it was enormously liberating to simplify their lives. As one person put it, "I spent the first half of my life acquiring stuff and the second half trying to get rid of it."

The reality is that most of us have much more than we need, and living a simplified existence allows us to get by on substantially less income. Get rid of the extras (multiple phone lines, health club memberships, eating out, $3.50 lattes, $60/month cable), ask your spouse or partner for transitional assistance, and begin.

There is power in simply starting. Dedication and persistence will be required in order to finish, because whether your dream is designing Web sites or spinning pottery, every new work situation will be flawed with compromises and difficullties. Some will require great sacrifice. It was an English theologian with the unfortunate name of Richard Hooker who observed, "Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better." How we bear up under the flaws and endure the changes will ultimately become the measure of our commitment to our own lives.

Benjamin Disraeli asserted, "Most people die with their music still locked up inside them." Perhaps the most important job any of us will ever have is releasing the symphony within.