Mindfully negotiating a career with a heart

Why do some people love their careers when others do not? We may be tempted to attribute differences in how individuals feel about their careers to the nature of their work. In particular, we may assume that careers requiring high levels of education or that are highly paid may be more likely to engender love. The opening quotes from Working, Studs Terkel’s 1974 oral histories of working America, however, suggest otherwise: while the stonemason expresses understated yet evident passion for his career, the stockbroker conveys frustration. And yet, if additional stonemasons and stockbrokers were interviewed, some interviewees from each occupation would love their careers, while others from the same group would not. When we speak about loving one’s career, we are referring to something fundamentally more enduring and exuberant than mere job satisfaction. Whereas job satisfaction implies basic ‘‘liking’’ of a particular job held at a specific point in time, ‘‘loving’’ a career means having a long-term passion for work that spans multiple jobs, across multiple points in time. The stonemason in the example above reflects this type of strong, enduring feeling. He describes his love of working with stone over the course of his career, without anchoring his love to a particular employer or job. Focusing on love of rather than satisfaction with one’s career is valuable because we currently lack a set of strongly