Career Vs Job: Following Your Passion By Michaela Acuyado
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“Are you happy with your life right now? Do you have regrets?“

Mostly, our answers will be “No,I am not happy.” and “Yes, I have plenty of regrets.” Yes, you read it right , it’s a “No and a Yes” because we feel that we are not content with our lives. We feel that there is/are still lacking in it. We regret that we haven’t or haven’t tried to do this and that. We regret that we chose or never chose this or that.

Why? What happened? What maybe the reason/reasons we feel this unhappiness and regrets today?

One big factor that we can consider why we become unhappy is our choice towards following our passion in life. 

Did you ever think about it? Do you love what you are doing right now? Do you love your job? Your work? 

If the answer is no, then obviously, it’s not your passion. If what you’re doing is your passion, then for sure you love, enjoy and feel happy doing it. They say passion can be equated to having a career in life while without a passion merely states that it is just a job you are doing.

So if you are passionate about what you are doing in life then you have surely established a career but if you are stressed right now and unhappy,then surely, you are just working in a job in order for you to earn a living.

See the difference? “Career” equates passion and “Job” equates stress.

You can see a lot of people struggling in life doing their work but despite the struggle spending more than 8 hrs a day in order to really learn their thing, you can see happiness all over their faces. Why? Because they have chosen a career in life. Remember, career has passion, contentment and happiness.

“If you can’t figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose.”

–Bishop T. D. Jakes

“The best feeling in the world is getting paid to do what you love.”

–Callingdreams.com

They say follow your heart, do what you love to do so you will live a happy and successful life. In short, have a career. Yes, they are right. Having a career will really take us to our dream land, even if it will take us a thousand years. It is because a career offers a long term profession or occupation that not only pays us but also enables us to enjoy life at the same time by doing our passion. If we compare it to a job, a job is just a short term thing that will help us earn a living, pay our bills and feed our stomach. 

A job is a short term thing because if we feel we don’t like it anymore and we feel burdened and stressed already, we can easily quit and look for another one. Yes we can easily quit because we are not attached to it. In short, our heart was not engraved in it. Am I right? 

Whereas if you consider a job as your career, then even if the work is killing you, the pay is so low, but because you love doing it, your passionate about learning it and you want to grow your knowledge and skills in that work, even if you spent sleepless nights and hungry stomach, still, you will not quit. Your heart was there, your passion was there – you love what you’re doing.  A career offers long term stability and growth and doing it everyday doesn’t seem a job but just a normal day task. As Confucious quite aptly states, “Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

Most people always talk about establishing a career in life but it is also the hardest thing to do. There are a lot of factors to consider most especially financially. We all want to have a career right? But certainly it’s true that we cannot have it all.

But to be practical, you can equate your job to the career you want or make your job as a stepping stone towards your career. It’s a matter of acceptance and proper planning.

If you think being a photographer and travelling around the world is your passion but the fact that it’s hard for you financially at the moment, then you can choose to either work at your job diligently and save for your career, or you can humbly accept that it’s okay if you will not be a photographer, anyway, you have a job and you will learn to love it and enjoy doing it so that you will be passionate about it and at the end your heart will be friend with it.

Isn’t it amazing? Yes, because not everyone can do it. Most people say, it’s not really my passion so I will not pursue it. But on the other hand, wise people will say, I can learn it and will be able to love it. It’s like falling in love, that, at first, you’ll say I don’t like that person because he’s/ she’s not my type, but when you come to get close and to know  more about that person, little by little, you’ll appreciate him/her and eventually fall for that person. Nothing is really hard to love in this world. I am telling you because love is timeless and is everywhere.

In our life, we have plenty of choices and the choices we make determines the path we will take.

So talking about career and job, well, it’s up to you, whether you’ll choose to have a career or to have a job or have your job as your career.

Anyway, I’ll tell, passion just follows around. It can be really created. It’s a matter of following your passion or creating your passion. Because at the end of the day, what we really wanted is contentment and happiness. No matter what walk in life we are in, as long as we love the life we live, then we are living the life we love. Happiness makes us successful in many ways. Isn’t it the most important thing?

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” – Albert Schweitzer