The bus with the dream job doesn't stop here...but it's not the only ride in town

As kids, most of us probably had to deal with "So-o-o-o...what do you want to be when you grow up?" It's always been a loaded question, but to me it seems like the urgency behind it grows more intense by the decade. By the time I graduated college in 1982, the gold standard wasn't merely to get a "good" job; by then, you were supposed to earn a living doing what you loved, whatever that might be.

 In 1992, when my husband and I made our way back to the Northwest with two kids in tow, this idea had become almost a religious creed among university graduates from middle-class and affluent families. If your job didn't thrill you and exercise your favorite talents as well as provide money to pay the bills, you were doing something wrong. Worse, if you were satisfied with a seemingly humdrum just-a-job, were content to practice your art or vocation after hours and didn't feel a burning need to make money from it, there was something wrong with you.

Happily for us double-lifers, this seems to be changing. Maybe it's partly due to the 2008-09 recession, when so many people lost top-tier positions and had to make do with jobs they'd never dreamed of doing before. Maybe it's because we humans have a way of eventually becoming disenchanted with anything we're doing, even when it thrills as well as pays bills. And maybe it's because some of us just grew tired of waging a never-ending quest for the elusive dream job or, as in the case of several writer friends, the publisher whose patronage of a novel will rescue the writer from her day job. For whatever reason, these days I'm meeting many more people, including my coworkers and fellow writers/musicians, who live the double life and are OK with it.

Life coaching pioneer and author Barbara Sher, wrote in her groundbreaking book Wishcraft, "If you want to do what you love for money, first try doing it for love." Here's a secret that many of us second-lifers don't stumble onto until we surrender: there's something to be said for keeping that love separate from money. It neutralizes the desperation that can take over both an artistic practice and a career when things aren't going as they "should." And desperation can kill both careers and artistic endeavors.

When you're desperate, you end up compromising in order to please other people - bosses, potential buyers, agents or "the market."  Desperation also makes financial difficulties worse. I don't know anyone who can afford to simply quit a job gone bad with total insouciance, but it's much easier when your whole identity isn't at stake (having a number of other marketable skills also helps!). And while rejection by a publisher, agent or director is never fun, it's easier to survive if you're not thinking, "OMG, there goes next month's rent" or "I'll never make a living as an author. I'm a failure!"

Once I became absolutely clear about the role that livlihood plays in my life, it became much easier to draw boundaries that keep the job contained in its own space, not slopping out into family, community or music time. The question became, "Does this job, new role or opportunity serve my larger goals, or will it hinder them?" It's usually not a hard question to answer. Once I became proficient at filtering out job-related things that don't serve, I started accomplishing more in the areas of life I've decided are most important.

Double-lifers tend to see life itself - relationships, family, friends, avocations, community or volunteer work and spiritual growth - as a career. Paid work supports that career but it's only one part in a large complex whole. If you're one of the zillions of people who currently doesn't earn your entire livlihood by following your bliss (yes, zillions - I can attest to this; I live in the greater Portland area), you're in plenty of company. And the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" has become irrelevant because we never stop growing.