I found this brief CNN video that profiles Rosena Sammi. In the clip, Sammi, once a corporate lawyer but now a jewelry designer, discusses her career change and why she gave up such lucrative work to start her own business. According to the now-ex-attorney, making jewelry, which she considers “wearable” artwork, provides her with a “creative outlet” that was lacking in her former job. Though she’s made a dramatic change in her work life, she believes that the skills she gained as a lawyer are helping her succeed as an artist and designer.
The whole subject of changing careers is one that I’m interested in because I sometimes think (more like fantasize) about what it would be like if I could get out of teaching and do something entirely different. (Actually, a few years ago, I did just that and worked, for a time, as the director of a nonprofit museum.) Anyway, all this writing about leaving one type of life behind for another prompted me to go online to see if I could find out how many people are truly happy with their occupations. My feeling, before even looking at what the stats showed, was that many feel that the work they do is not the sort that is conducive to self-actualization.
I found this MSNBC article from 2007 that shows that most Americans (I wasn’t able, during the few minutes that I looked, to find numbers on people living and working elsewhere) are not terribly satisfied with their careers. OK, the article is a bit outdated, but I don’t see any reason why those numbers would have changed (for the better) in the last three years. Bottom line: dissatisfaction abounds in the workplace.
Like I said, none of this surprises me. The whole system is designed in such a way that career dissatisfaction is pretty much a guaranteed outcome. Students, when they first go to college, are asked to choose majors at an age when they have very limited life and work experience. Thus, at that age, most don’t know themselves well at all, yet they are asked to make very personal decisions that will shape their lives (and limit their options) well into the future. The way many of us go about choosing our careers is, I think, a recipe for much unhappiness.
That’s my two cents.
Tags: Women's Issues
