How to Find the Kind of Workin Which You May Be Happy and Successful1
Chapter 58
The Major Decision of Your Life
This chapter is addressed to young men and women whohaven’t yet found the work they want to do. If you are in thatcategory， reading this chapter may have a profound effect uponthe remainder of your life.
If you are under eighteen， you will probably soon be calledupon to make the two most important decisions of your life—
decisions that will profoundly alter all the days of your years：decisions that may have far-reaching effects upon your happiness，your income， your health; decisions that may make or break you.
What are these two tremendous decisions?
First： How are you going to make a living? Are you going to bea farmer， a mail carrier， a chemist， a forest ranger， a stenographer，a horse dealer， a college professor， or are you going to run ahamburger stand?
Second： Whom are you going to select to be the father or motherof your children? Both of those great decisions are frequentlygambles. “Every boy，” says Harry Emerson Fosdick in his book，The Power to See It Through， “every boy is a gambler when hechooses a vocation. He must stake his life on it.”
How can you reduce the gamble in selecting a vocation? Readon; we will tell you as best we can.
First， try， if possible， to find work that you enjoy. I once askedDavid M. Goodrich， Chairman of the Board， B. F. Goodrichcompany-tyre manufacturers—what he considered the firstrequisite of success in business， and he replied： “Having a good time at your work. If you enjoy what you are doing，” he said， “youmay work long hours， but it won’t seem like work at all. It willseem like play.”
Edison was a good example of that. Edison—the unschoolednewsboy who grew up to transform the industrial life ofAmerica—Edison， the man who often ate and slept in hislaboratory and toiled there for eighteen hours a day. But it wasn’ttoil to him. “I never did a day’s work in my life，” he exclaimed. “Itwas all fun.” No wonder he succeeded！
I once heard Charles Schwab say much the same thing. Hesaid： “A man can succeed at almost anything for which he hasunlimited enthusiasm.”
But how can you have enthusiasm for a job when you haven’tthe foggiest idea of what you want to do? “The greatest tragedyI know of，” said Mrs. Edna Kerr， who once hired thousandsof employees for the Dupont company， and is now assistantdirector of industrial relations for the American Home Productscompany— “The greatest tragedy I know of，” she told me， “is thatso many young people never discover what they really want to do.
I think no one else is so much to be pitied as the person who getsnothing at all out of his work but his pay.” Mrs. Kerr reports thateven college graduates come to her and say： “I have a B. A. degreefrom Dartmouth [or an M. A. from Cornell]。 Have you some kindof work I can do for your firm?” They don’t know themselveswhat they are able to do， or even what they would like to do. Is itany wonder that so many men and women who start out in lifewith competent minds and rosy dreams end up at forty in utterfrustration and even with a nervous breakdown? In fact， findingthe right occupation is important even for your health. When Dr.
Raymond Pearl， of Johns Hopkins， made a study， together withsome insurance companies， to discover the factors that make for a long life， he placed “the right occupation” high on the list. Hemight have said， with Thomas Carlyle： “Blessed is the man whohas found his work. Let him ask no other blessedness.”
I recently spent an evening with Paul W. Boynton， employmentsupervisor for the Socony-Vacuum Oil company. During the lasttwenty years he has interviewed more than seventy-five thousandpeople looking for jobs， and he has written a book entitled 6 Waysto Get a Job. I asked him： “What is the greatest mistake youngpeople make today in looking for work?” “They don’t know whatthey want to do，” he said. “It is perfectly appalling to realise thata man will give more thought to buying a suit of clothes that willwear out in a few years than he will give to choosing the careeron which his whole future depends-on which his whole futurehappiness and peace of mind are based！”
And so what? What can you do about it? You can takeadvantage of a new profession called vocational guidance. It mayhelp you—or harm you—depending on the ability and characterof the counselor you consult. This new profession isn’t evenwithin gunshot of perfection yet. It hasn’t even reached the ModelT stage. But it has a great future. How can you make use of thisscience? By finding out where， in your community， you can getvocational tests and vocational advice.
Such advice can only take the form of suggestions. You haveto make the decisions. Remember that these counselors are farfrom infallible. They don’t always agree with one another. Theysometimes make ridiculous mistakes. For example， a vocationalguidance counselor advised one of my students to become awriter solely because she had a large vocabulary. How absurd！
It isn’t as simple as that. Good writing is the kind that transfersyour thoughts and emotions to the reader—and to do that， youdon’t need a large vocabulary， but you do need ideas， experience，convictions， examples and excitement. The vocational counselorwho advised this girl with a large vocabulary to become an authorsucceeded in doing only one thing： he turned an erstwhile happystenographer into a frustrated， would-be novelist.
The point I am trying to make is that vocational-guidanceexperts， even as you and I， are not infallible. Perhaps you hadbetter consult several of them-and then interpret their findings inthe sunlight of common sense.