Over the years I’ve thought a lot about the saying, “It’s not about what you do but about who you are becoming…”  I think I still hold to this view, but at times the two seem so interrelated it’s difficult to sift out one’s actions from one’s character / motives.  A decision to do something, especially with one’s life, tends to form character and provide definition where perhaps no definition was intended.  I realize that a person may not see themselves as just a baker or candlestick maker, but if they are doing those activities over a long period of time I think certain aspects of their character have been formed by those activities.  They view the world from the framework of a baker or a candlestick maker–even if they hate their occupation.

The reason I bring this up is because of this great book I’m reading by Po Bronson called What Should I Do With My Life? It’s been a pretty intense read for me right now, but I’m thankful for it.  It’s about a laundry list of different types of people who were following a certain path with their lives (career-wise) who made radical changes to re-create themselves or to follow their real dreams.  That’s a simple way of putting it.  There are also stories of people who had dreams but weren’t able to find ways to realize them.  It’s a book about the process of thinking through “what it’s all about” and how we cope with that question.  Here’s how Bronson describes the book in one of the chapters:

This book is not about what it’s like to do certain jobs.  There’s a touch of that, inevitably, but I discovered such information isn’t helpful.  It doesn’t drive decisions.  People who had been through a lot reported that they changed their life, or got clarity, when they become conscious of what kind of person a certain job/industry/lifestyle was turning them into.  So the relevant question is not what you will do, but who you will become.  What belief system will you adopt, and what will take on heightened importance in your life?  This personalizes the stakes and makes it a lot harder to lie to oneself and ignore the points of conflict.

So if people who’ve found their place don’t talk about how exciting and challenging and stimulating their work is, then what do they talk about?  Their language invoked a different troika: meaningful/significant/fulfilling.  And they rarely ever talk about their work without interweaving some of their personal history, explaining how the two are related.  It takes a while to learn who we are, and for our latent talents to emerge.  Certainly we’re better off and will contribute more in a situation that fits us, but in the meantime, we can challenge ourselves in a various environments, and use them all to find out who we are.

One of the intriguing things about the book is that you would think that this question is sort of an upper-class, elitist type of dilemma.  Surely, most people can’t afford to pursue their dream, right?  This thinking goes that this is an issue that most common folks don’t have the luxury to even consider.  Bronson argues that this is not really the case.  Many of the stories in the book relate to folks who were “down and out” or didn’t have options.  But these people still had dreams and many times they went up against the odds to pursue them.  I’m sure some of you have seen  Pursuit of Happyness (so it’s that kind of thing).  One of the excellent stories was about an out-of-work blue-collar electrician who bounced back, went to college, and ended up starting his own solar panel business.  Po asked him if other people could do what he had done.  This was his response:

“If you’re going to hold me up as a role model, the important thing to emphasize is, I’m not just some electrician-for-hire who now works for himself.  I got divorced, I lost my house, I went through a lot, and that shaped my character.  I understand now it’s a matter of character.  Getting my degree shaped my character, taught me how to think.  If you think starting a business is like winning the Lotto, something you gamble on and luck into, and whoopee, then Lotto odds are about your odds.  But if you develop the character–then yeah, the odds are pretty darn good you’ll succeed.”

Hmmm, so he seems to think that character holds one of the keys to success in pursuing one’s passion.  And character is tied to what we do or how we respond to life as it presents itself to us.  So we’ve come full circle.  Doing, being, succeeding.  They are all tied together somehow.  If you are thinking, “Yeah, but what about…” then I highly recommend this book.  Bronson attacks this question from every conceivable angle with a wide variety of examples.  Good stuff.