I met an old friend recently. We had practiced law together. 25 years ago. I have not seen him more than a couple of times since. So he did not even know that the primary practice of my work involved career counseling. He had assumed that my entire work was running The Learning Consultants
My old friend asked me about my work: I explained that helping people find their career direction was immensely satisfying – TO ME. “That’s because you are actually helping people.” My friend said, ruefully.
Many lawyers were attracted to law, in part, because they wanted to help others. Lawyers are practical types but many started as practical-idealists. The realities of making a living in private practice often diminish or extinguish the idealistic part. That’s why lawyers are often unhappy.
My friend is very successful. Indeed, I sometimes have to curtail my enthusiasm/happiness at my work with Career Counseling Connecticut with men my age because I do not want to make them feel bad. I gave my friend an honest answer and then almost regretted doing so because I knew he was then engaged in self-examination about his relatively purposeless work. His practice involves purely transactional legal work for financial services firms. As he put it, he’s just processing paper work. That’s not entirely true because he has some intellectual challenge. But the end result of his work – documenting financial transactions for private equity investors – does not give him much purpose.
To be clear, some might find such work meaningful. My friend doesn’t.
He also thinks that it is too late for him to change. “I want to become a client of Career Counseling Connecticut. But I’m too old. I’ll send my kids when they graduate college.”
That wasn’t quite true but I wasn’t going to press the issue as I knew he maintains a lifestyle that would make switching his career a real challenge.
The lesson: craft your purposeful career as early in your life as possible or ensure that your young adult children do so.