Can You Help Me Find a Career?

I’m 27, single, and working from my bedroom at my third job in three years. 

I spent the first 24 years of my life following the yeshivah track, getting the best education there is, and then suddenly everyone around me was married and had it all figured out, while I feel like I was thrown off a cliff with no direction in how to build a career. I had dreams of making lots of money and tried jobs that seemed like they would get me there, but it’s not working. At this point I don’t even know how I’ll ever support a family.

Can you help me? 

—Hoping there’s more to work than this

Thank you for your brutally honest question. I think one of the hardest parts of having a typical clear-cut life path to follow is that it feels disorienting and confusing when your life takes you on a slightly different route.

Instead of wallowing in disappointment, let’s reorient and look at the compass from where you actually are right now.

First, let’s think about the goal of your career. From your question, it seems that you think the only goal is money. That mistaken premise explains why you’ve made the choices you have: You chose a job solely based on its earning potential, instead of based on your potential. The sad irony is that choosing a career that way often ensures the exact opposite.

Let me take you back to what it seems you missed in your wonderful yeshivah education. Chovos Halevavos tells us exactly how to choose a career: Choose something that fits your natural talents. Rabi Meir in the Gemara takes it further, adjoining us to choose a profession that is “Nekiyah v’kalah,” translated as something not too hard that won’t ruin your reputation. He furthermore explains that a person’s career choice has zero correlation to his income.