How to Find Fulfilling Work

February 11, 2013
The latest practical advice book from the School of Life (founded in London by Alain de Botton in 2008) deconstructs the qualities of an ideal job by guiding readers through thought exercises, success stories, and philosophies of fulfillment. Krznaric (The Wonder Box) examines many common work-related quandaries, such as an overabundance (or dearth) of employment options, premature commitments to a career path, “the psychology of fear” that keeps folks tied to a job they dislike, how to gauge whether an occupation is meaningful, and what kind of rewards are most important. The “cultural thinker” also offers useful suggestions on how to test out new professions in your spare time without making a commitment. Thought exercises pose important questions (e.g., “Where do your talents meet the needs of the world?”) and invite readers to imagine what they might be doing in parallel universes. Krznaric has advised everyone from Oxfam to the U.N., but just in case he isn’t convincing, he brings the lives and teachings of late greats like Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci, and Wallace Stevens to bear on the proceedings. Ultimately, he presents Marie Curie’s illustrious career as proof and inspiration that our ideal vocation is “not something we find, it’s something we grow.” Agent: Margaret Hanbury, the Hanbury Agency (U.K.)

March 1, 2013
An inspirational self-help book with an intellectual pedigree. For those interested in making a career switch (or just brooding on alternatives to their unfulfilling jobs), this pocket guide by a former British academic turned lifestyle consultant organizes itself along familiar lines: the three this, the four that, the emphasis of italics, the easily digestible verities and slogans so common among the genre. Yet the advice from Krznaric (The Wonderbox, 2011, etc.) has literary, philosophical underpinnings that give it uncommon depth, blurring the distinctions between where to work and how to live. Thus, the book not only distills fulfilling work to "three essential ingredients: meaning, flow and freedom"; it raises the issue of "what meaning really means, and how to find it." Ultimately, much of the advice is common sense (bolstered by words and examples from Bertrand Russell, da Vinci, Rousseau and others), and much of the urging is to take that chance rather than settling for numbing security. Meaning (once we figure out what it means) and freedom are fairly easy to grasp in comparison with the trickier "flow," which suggests work that you can lose yourself in, so that work hardly seems like work at all: "It most commonly occurs when we are using our skills to do a task that is challenging, but not so hard that we fear failing." Perhaps the most counterintuitive piece of advice comes in the "Act First, Reflect Later" chapter, which doesn't necessarily advocate recklessness but does suggest that planning can be procrastination and that the only way to see what the experience is like is to experience it. Those who would seek out a book like this are already most primed to follow its suggestions.

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