Instead of asking children what their dream job is, we should be asking different questions entirely!

What kind of life do you want to build? What values do you want your work to reflect? What skills do you want to develop? How do you want to contribute to the world around you? What kind of people do you want to work alongside?

And then:

What are you willing to sacrifice for those things? What discomfort are you willing to endure? What would make you proud to be tired at the end of the day?

If you want flexibility, are you willing to trade some security? If you want creativity, are you prepared for financial uncertainty? If you want to help people, can you handle seeing them at their worst? If you want to build something, are you ready for the loneliness of starting from zero?

These questions acknowledge that work and passion can be separate things... Your passion might be birdwatching or medieval history or competitive sailing. Your profession might be accounting or nursing or software development. The goal does not have to be to collapse these categories, but to ensure your profession serves your broader life vision.

Good work should do at least one of these things: fund the life you actually want to live, align with values you can defend at dinner parties, surround you with people who challenge you to grow, or teach you skills that compound like interest over decades. Great work does several of these at once.

But work doesn't have to feel like play, and you sure as hell don't have to love every minute of it.

In fact, here's what we should tell young people instead of chasing passion: "You won't love every minute of your dream job. The surgeon doesn't love insurance paperwork. The chef doesn't love inventory. The teacher doesn't love grading. But they love what the work builds, what it enables, who it serves."

Maalvika • Why Are We Lying to Young People About Work?