Imagine the following situation: You are at a wedding, sitting in a table with people you don’t know. You introduce yourself:
- Hi, my name is Johnny, nice to meet you.
- Well nice to meet you Johnny! Tell me, what do you do for your living?

Long silence.

This was the very question you were afraid people would ask. You knew they would, but you couldn’t prepare for it because you didn’t have an answer that would satisfy yourself.
- Well… I work with computers, you know… I’m a programmer… Coding… Computer Science… err… It brings the food on the table, you mumble.

The conversation moves on and you’re left with a feeling that you could have done better.

Or maybe you are one of the lucky ones and you even wait to hear that question. You are confident with your work and happy to tell people about it. You reply promptly:
- I like to talk to people and want to encourage others to do that as well, so I’m making people talk to each other more by working on this communication software.

Same job, two completely different descriptions.

The first Johnny was just doing a job – working on something to get the money and feed the family. Just like most of us. The second one was doing what he really enjoys, something that tells the world who Johnny is all about. Something that matches Johnny’s values.

What about you? What would you answer? I think that example is a pretty good test for finding out if you’re spending your working days being the best you can or if you’re just wasting your precious hours

Let me give you a few examples:

1. If you want to be fighting global warming, your company should be committed to fighting it as well. (Google is a great example)
2. If you want to help get rid of poverty, your company should be supporting people from developing countries either through their work or monetarily (and making sure that their business isn’t harmful for the poor).
3. If you want to make people friendlier, your company should have a friendly an open image.
4. If you want to take great care of your family, your company should let you work from home from time to time, and take time off when your children need you.
5. If you value freedom, your work should allow you to take responsibility on your actions and choose your ways of working yourself.

The list could go on forever as we all have different values and different values call for different jobs.

“That’s just some idealistic crap. We all know life doesn’t work that way”

Let me tell you something. The only reason why this sounds idealistic is because we’ve been programmed by Frederick W. Taylor and his successors to believe that work is only something we do to earn our living. In our philosophy we think that we sell our time to the Company and get some money in return. But that’s not how things are anymore (maybe they never were in the first place, I don’t know). Actually I think that it’s an old fashioned way of thinking that creates more problems than helps to solve:

1. When you work for money, you don’t find as much to enjoy in your work as you could. That leads to a lower productivity and happiness at work.
2. When you work for money, you won’t take responsibility on your company’s actions regarding important things such as taking care of the nature. While you take responsibility of your own actions in your free time, work is a completely different story.
3. When you work for money, it takes a toll from your free time. As human beings we have a need to work for our values, and if we can’t do it at work, we’ll do it after working hours – which should be the time for relaxing with the family.
4. Life is short. When you work for money, you slowly start to notice how quickly time goes by without you doing the things you think you are put on this planet to do. That’s a scary feeling.

This is what I’m saying: Make sure your values match with your work. If they don’t, try to find ways to change your work, or even get a different job. If you cannot find a job that suits you, create one yourself! Life is just too short for only chasing after money:

If we only got one try
If we’ve only got one life
If time was never on our side
Before I die I want to burn out bright

— Burn Out Bright by Switchfoot