Whistle While You... Play

I’ll admit I've been avoiding this one. This week’s Andrum’s Conundrum has got my knickers in a knot. Initially, it did, anyway.

Would you rather be extremely successful professionally and have a tolerable yet unexciting private life, or have an extremely happy private life and only tolerable and uninspiring professional life?

What it comes down to is whether I want my excitement to come from my job or from my personal life. When put that way, it made everything more digestible. It became more clear and less difficult. Sure, we’d like our jobs to be exciting, interesting, fulfilling. We spend a good part of our day there and should at least be nominally rewarded. But an inspiring work life would mean a dull personal life. And that just won’t do.

So I broke it down to the logistics of the situation. A job exists (generally) within established parameters: hours to be worked, production to be accomplished, goals to be reached. At one extreme of this definition are the data entry people. They put in a 9 to 5 day, produce some amount of work, and accomplish some task by doing so. At the other extreme of the job field, you’ve got the Bear Grylls guy who’s hours are left up to the production team, but then he can go weeks without being on a schedule. His tasks vary from episode to episode and hopefully his goal of not dying out there is accomplished without too much hardship [read: boredom].

So, yes, there are exciting jobs out there, but let’s face it, the greater population leans towards the data entry crowd. Opportunity is somewhat limited. What there is becomes more or less defined by what exists already, although more and more, jobs are being invented to service an ever-growing world market.

Now let’s look at our options in leisure. Leisure can be seen in its extremes as well. There are those who come home from a day at the office and fall asleep in front of the TV. No dig. I've been known to do it, myself, from time to time. And there are those who run off to hike the Andes on a weekend and still make it back for the Monday morning meeting. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle, I suspect.

Now for the disclaimers. Usually these questions bring up other questions about what is a given and what is not. Many a raucous debate among friends has been settled with a simple premise: Assume the ideal situation. What I mean is this: don’t take into account whether you have enough money to do all the things you want to do in your scenario. Don’t wonder whether there are limitations that you should have to iron out. Assume the ideal situation. So when we talk about job or leisure, assume that whatever job you are considering in your head that you hold is a great-paying job and leaves you wanting for nothing. And assume that whatever leisure you are salivating about is well-funded and limitless. So, logistics aside, it’s not about the practical approach, it’s about the question of where you want your inspiration to come from.

It’s simple for me. I want to be inspired by my personal life. I want to travel, take classes, try various activities, push myself to see what else there is. If the rule is that my job is neither a detriment nor enabling of this, then I could pretty much have any job there is. Including one that I would find enjoyable, if not inspiring. It isn’t stated that my job would have to be comparatively demoralizing, so there’s nothing to say that I couldn’t very well enjoy it and still have a fantabulous personal life.

The alternative is too limiting. As much as a sensational job may be inspiring, there are still limits to every job. In the end, a job is work. It means that there will be boundaries outside of which you couldn’t perform. Jobs come with boxes. Leisure, not so much.

So that’s my answer. What’s yours?