Societies function optimally when the behavior of their citizens can be predicted and manipulated. This allows for long-term planning and large scale efficiencies. Because of this, it is beneficial for societies to create a mechanism that encourages you to derive a big part of your identity from your job. It is no accident that many of us describe ourselves as our professions and acquire a great deal of meaning and pride from functioning in those roles. But you are not your job and you really weren’t meant to be anything.
We all have our predispositions, but those predispositions are a lot more general than people often believe. You might think you were born to be an astronaut, but you’d be shit out of luck if no one had invented rockets yet. Similarly, a couple of centuries ago, the predominant global occupation was agriculture since the technology to produce food efficiently and reliably was not yet available. Those folks were not all born to be farmers.
The private and public sectors go to great lengths to create incentive structures that lock you in place and discourage you from switching jobs or fields. There’s the incentive of the experience differential, which is structured to offer you incrementally more money and advancement opportunities within your field and/or organization as long as you stay put. There are pensions, employer-matched 401k and 403b plans, seniority-based benefits, health insurance subsidies and the promise of a “work family” to replace your actual family that you never see.
Most of the above incentive structures target and appeal to individuals with a low risk tolerance, the folks that believe that a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. But what if there are 100 birds in that bush? What if what you’re missing out on is exponentially more exciting and lucrative than working in human resources? What risk averse individuals miss in their calculations is the risk of not living your life to its full potential. By remaining on a safe and predictable path, you commit yourself to an average existence. And yes you won’t ever feel the pain of your business failing and you losing all your money. But you’ll also never have the chance to see the view from the peak of the mountain.