First published in 1970, What Color Is Your Parachute? is a best-selling self-help guide for career-seekers. It offers tips for doing well in job interviews and stresses the power of networking. It also helps you clarify your strengths and interests so you can identify the best-fit roles and successfully pursue them. I remember receiving a print copy from someone—a family friend, most likely—sometime in the ‘80s.
The title of the book was actually a question that the author, Richard Bolles, had jokingly asked his colleagues during an office meeting. Several of them had been talking about bailing out of the organization they were all working for at the time. This great piece sums up the insights the book still offers, half a decade after its original release.
Many of the points made in What Color Is Your Parachute? make me think of the Japanese concept of ikigai. Put simply, ikigai is about having a purpose in life, based on a balance of factors such as your personal beliefs, goals, needs, and abilities.
Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
This past October, I was let go from my job. Although it wasn’t entirely a surprise—despite good-faith efforts on both sides, the position had not been the right fit—it was still a shock. In fact, the morning after I was let go, I found it hard to get out of bed. I was feeling a certain degree of relief, but I was also experiencing deep grief. Within 24 hours, I had lost a salary, a job title, coworkers, clients, and a daily purpose. I was suddenly forced to reexamine my professional identity. Anticipating awkward conversations with friends, I also had to decide how to describe myself. Unemployed—or in transition?
Since that day, I’ve been thinking a lot about the meaning of work. Besides wanting to put food on the table, why do we work? When does a job become something more—even a calling? How can we recognize when something will be a good fit? Does a rewarding career mean a good salary and benefits, advancement, opportunities for personal growth, camaraderie in the workplace, commitment to an inspiring mission, or something else? No doubt the ideal is a combination of all of these. Ikigai.
As I map out where I hope to go in the next few months and years, I’m reflecting on the stops along my unorthodox career path up until this point. These include teaching English as a Second Language, managing marketing for my high school alma mater, and writing ad copy for various businesses and organizations. I’m also remembering a few of the jobs that shaped my definition and expectations of work when I was still quite young.
I got my first non-babysitting gig during the summer between my junior and senior year of high school: I cleaned the bathrooms at a Salvation Army camp in Maine. In addition to making me appreciate good plumbing, scrubbing sinks and toilets opened my eyes to the importance of having connections. Although I wasn’t a Salvationist, my paternal grandmother was a retired Salvation Army officer. When she learned I needed a summer job, she spoke to someone in administration about offering her granddaughter a camp position. I was under no illusion as to why I could spend my summer at Lake Sebago making friends and earning money for senior year of high school. I was determined to work hard so as not to embarrass Grams. By midsummer, I was promoted to the laundry room.
During the summer after my sophomore year at college, I waited on tables at the Golden Rooster, a small, family-owned restaurant specializing in breakfast and lunch. Again, I learned the value of hard work, not to mention connections. Before landing the summer gig, I had spent several weeks putting in applications at the local Friendly’s restaurant, ice cream shops, stores, and other places, with no success. Then one day I saw a help wanted sign in the window of the Golden Rooster. I went inside and asked for an application. The owner, Mr. Lally, soon came out from the back and sat next to me at the counter. He began reviewing my application; the corner of his lips soon turned up. “Are you related to…” I eagerly replied, “You mean Uncle Bill? Yes, I am.” I got the job, and despite nearly breaking the restaurant’s only coffee machine my first week, I went on to do quite well that summer.
After college came a host of other adventures, most notably a stint as an administrative assistant for the League of Women Voters Education Fund in Washington, DC. I worked on the Women’s Vote Project, a voter registration initiative targeting low-income women and women of color. My boss, Marlene—more mentor than manager—took me with her on site visits to Youngstown, Ohio, and Hagerstown, Maryland. We met with groups of women to encourage their electoral participation. I was in awe as I watched my mentor, usually reserved during meetings back at the DC office, come alive as she spoke about the democratic process with these women. I have very few regrets in life, but leaving that job to move back home is certainly one of them.
Despite the enduring popularity of Richard Bolles’ self-help guide, as well as numerous online career resources, a person’s job search still often boils down to one utilitarian question: What do you want to do?
The older I get, the more limiting that question seems. Whether we’re starting a career, changing careers, or trying to get back into the game after being unexpectedly sidelined, I think questions that help visualize our Venn diagram of ikigai can provide clarity:
What are you good at?
What don’t you want to do, and why?
What are you passionate about?
What are your values?
Why is work important to you?
What kind of person do you want to be through your work?
Do you want your work to make the world better somehow?
A few years ago, during a visit to a small town in West Virginia, I got an idea for a project while chatting with a young female server at a diner off I-79. I decided I wanted to do a 21st-century version of Stud Terkel’s Working. I fantasized about traveling around the country and interviewing different people about their jobs (restaurant workers, Uber drivers, lawyers, doctors, artists, small-business owners, mechanics, you name it), and writing a collection of portraits. Maybe I’d call it America at Work.
I’ll have to keep that project on the back burner, though. For now, I have another meaningful project: to continue asking myself questions and taking the steps I need to get closer to my own version of ikigai.
How about you? What does work mean to you?