« Late night reading | Main | You need a job title for a pick-up line? »

Do it before your deathbed

Why does it take people until they almost die to realize "that it is important to do what makes you happy"?

Here, the closing of a recent WSJ column about how people are insecure about their job titles.

Sometimes a particularly harrowing experience can also help us to put concerns with status in a better perspective.

Huong Do had such an experience. The 28-year-old research assistant works in public health in New York City. Ms. Do, who has a master's degree in statistics, really enjoys her work, but knows that to really rise in her field, she should return to school for a Ph.D. But she's not in a hurry.

Nor is she worried that many of her friends are medical students and residents who, a few years down the line, will be full-fledged doctors, earning a lot more money than she does and treated with all the respect that our society affords physicians.

"I used to be the overachiever who wanted to go off in a blaze of glory and discover the cure for cancer," she says.

But when she was 23, she herself was diagnosed with cancer.

"That shifted my whole perspective," says Ms. Do, who is in remission. "I saw people who didn't make it, and I learned that it is important to do what makes you happy."

It's a key life lesson. After all, we spend a lot more time at our desks than we do making small talk at parties.

Link: Wall Street Journal: How Cool Is Your Job? Does It Even Matter?

Posted by Ian Ybarra on 23 October 2005