Do you remember your first crush?
They often don’t work out so well. Maybe you were too afraid to tell anyone, and you found your crush and your best friend holding hands. Perhaps all the other kids in class made fun of you when they found out. Or maybe your crush embarrassed you with rejection in front of the whole school.
Part of the fun and part of the problem with crushes is that we create an ideal image of the other person. We project onto them who we want them to be without really knowing who they are.
It’s the beginning of a natural life process in which we eventually move from crushes to dates to serious relationships. It’s a very logical way to approach an illogical decision– finding our perfect life partner.
This process makes so much sense, that I wonder… why don’t we use this same method to choose our other most significant life partner?
Why don’t we date our career before getting into a career marriage?
Many of us started the career process the same way. We developed crushes on careers.
I developed my crush on dentistry after years of great visits to the dental office. When I saw how positive and happy everyone was, I knew dentistry would give me my perfect happy ever after. You may have crushed on becoming a pilot or an athlete because from the outside, it looked cool! You may have even fallen in love with the idea of being a dentist too.
Just like our childhood love crushes, we idealized the image of what a dental career appeared to be. We put it on a pedestal, thinking it had everything we wanted in our career relationship without really knowing it.
The problem is we skipped the dating phase and hopped right into a career marriage.
Maybe you had the wherewithal to date your dentistry crush, and build a relationship with it by working in a dental office.
The rest of us either accepted the arranged career marriage that our parents wanted for us, or we hopped right into bed with our dentistry crush.
No matter which path you took to get into your dental career marriage, you never know how the relationship will evolve over the years. Whether you dated your career to your heart’s content or married your crush on a whim, there are no guarantees.
No matter how you got here doesn’t really matter. The point is, you are here now. If today the passion is gone, you don’t need to stay stuck in a loveless career marriage.
In July, I competed in Dentistry’s Got Talent for the second time, and I won!
A few images from the event…
Leave a Reply
What do you think?