I can remember when I was fifteen years old and I had just started to think more seriously about my future career. The menu of career options presented to me by the status quo didn’t interest me at all, and getting good grades in school required motivation. I could relate to some of my friends whose response seemed to be “screw it, I don’t need this crap, I’d rather just have fun”. And that’s what some of them did, understandably. However, I figured there must be a way to have fun while also pursuing a successful career. It seemed short-sighted to me to assume that a career must necessarily be something boring and obligatory. Likewise, it seemed short sighted to assume that a legit career couldn’t be something deeply enjoyable. Sure, there’s no such thing as a career that is fun and easy all the time, but I knew the boring or unpleasant parts of getting there wouldn’t be so bad if I was pursuing something genuinely awesome.
Here’s a polarity map to convey the wisdom I had discovered, allowing me to avoid a vicious cycle based on either-or thinking, clarifying my values in the process and empowering me to pursue a new goal that lit me up!
With my clear goal of pursuing a career that is both fun AND responsible, I knew I was going against the grain of what many people seemed to believe: That in order to grow up and become a responsible adult, you’ve got to straighten up, stop fooling around, and do something serious with yourself if you want to be respected. For me, the challenge of proving this wrong increased my motivation. If I could manage to pull it off, then not only would I have the best of both worlds, perhaps I could also inspire others.
Upon gaining this insight, I started to let myself dream about what I could really have fun doing that would also be a responsible choice of career. My first idea was to pursue a career in architecture. I really enjoyed my grade nine drafting class, where I had been working on designs for the perfect skateboard ramp. I loved the idea of a career immersed in the creative process of designing floor plans and imagining cozy, beautiful living spaces. I started to get excited about this and explore what kind of education I would need in order to become an architect.
Then I discovered computer programming. I had always loved video games, and it occurred to me that I could make video games for a living! Now THAT would be fun. Again, I was attracted to the creative process of designing worlds for others to explore. Software development was said to earn a great income, so it ranked high on the responsibility scale as well. Perfect!
It was a good thing that I was highly motivated by my own values because there were many hurdles to overcome. I lived in a small town in Ontario, Canada, nowhere near any of the popular game companies, most of them in the USA. There weren’t a lot of resources available to me at the time, which was before the internet. Working for the most popular video game companies was also extremely competitive. When I shared my dream with others, many were skeptical and encouraged me to be more realistic. Instead of letting this get me down, I let it fuel my determination.
My high school grades immediately went from being average to very good once I had my own reason for doing well in school. I spent much of my spare time tinkering on the computer, teaching myself programming and learning how to make my own games from books and other resources available at the time.
After graduating from high school, I found my way into the Computing Science Multimedia Specialist program at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC. Vancouver was the epicenter of the Canadian video games industry at the time and I landed my first job with a major game company that developed popular sports games in 1997.
Well look at that… I actually did it! The rewards were huge for me and I spent the next decade living a dream come true, earning a responsible income and having loads of fun while I was at it. Best of all, I had found my people. I spent my days living the dream with others who valued fun just as much as they valued responsibility
So it goes with life and the process of values discovery, it’s never as simple as happy endings. As my career progressed and I gained experience, some things started to really bother me. I saw a lot of personality conflicts, politics, and power battles getting in the way of making great games. This was always there from my first day on the job, but somehow it hadn’t bothered me until now.
To keep my dream alive, I had to become skilled at navigating (tolerating?) all of this, but this isn’t what I had signed up for. Like many of my peers, at times I resigned myself to complaining about it while feeling powerless to change it. I blamed these problems on management, on “those people with oversized egos” and on corporate culture itself. The overtime that my job sometimes required started to feel like it was draining my life force and for the first time, I felt deeply dissatisfied with my career. But I had a good salary and great perks. Had I lost track of how to be grateful?
“Focus on what you can control and let go of the rest” is what my managers would say. It helped, but only so much. I had the instinct to know that better teamwork and culture was possible, but I didn’t see it as something I had the power to influence. They didn’t seem to think so either.
I felt powerless as increasing amounts of my energy went into complaining about these problems. Maybe it was just the madness of the corporate world and I would be better off escaping the rat race. How did my career as a game developer go from feeling like a dream come true to feeling like a miserably frustrating death march? The more I complained about it, the more I descended into a dark place without a clear path forward.
The story continues… My Career Journey as a Process of Values Discovery: Part 2
