Passion vs. Skills

I've recently come to understand that there's a gap in my understanding of how to go about being a useful, productive person. I've known this for awhile, but the light bulb just turned on and I will take this moment of lucidity to write it down quickly. I was perusing my email when I saw something come through one of the listservs that I'm on here in Virginia. It was a job posting for a position as Coordinator for Media Strategy for National Geographic. I see that email, and I'm like, "Oh! National Geographic, I love them!" but then I see "Coordinator for Media Strategy" and I'm like "Oh... ugh. Not my field. Oh well." And it was then that I had my little epiphany that having the right skills enables you to take part in things you love. See, I would never have gone into marketing or communication, nor do I think I should have. But the point is that by being a little more longsighted, I could have developed skills that would be broadly applicable. Going into something that seems boring at the time might not be "following one's dreams," but it might allow me to do so once the hard work has been accomplished and I've obtained a particular skill set.

I guess I realized that we can't just be fanboys/fangirls and hope to land a job in our field simply by loving it to death. I love Europe, but doing European Studies just taught me more facts about Europe. I'd be good at a "Trivial Pursuit" game of Europe, but I don't know the nitty-gritty about European law, business, or even politics to a certain degree. I'm starting to think that just reading and thinking about things that I love was really just shooting myself in the foot. Granted, I feel like professional specialization is actually something generally lacking in higher education right now, especially in an impractical liberal arts degree like mine. The more I've learned about what pushes society forward, the less I feel like I have the skills to help. Math, science, technology and engineering power R&D and exciting innovation; entrepreneurship creates jobs and new markets, new ways for people to spend their money. And here I am with a BA in European Studies, and an aversion to risky things like entrepreneurship and hard things like math.

I'll soon be starting my MA in European and Eurasian Studies, once again going for something safe and something that I love. I'm hoping that this time, however, I'll be able to choose a track for professional specialization and gather some skills so that I can find job offers and be able to bring something practical to the table. Maybe I would have done things a little differently in my undergrad, had I understood that it's not really enough just to love something.

This is a really good TED Talk that I kept thinking about as I wrote this. It's Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs, talking about a few ideas that have come to him from exposing himself to all sorts of different job that are under the radar, but are absolutely needed. It's not directly connected to my thoughts above, but I feel like there are enough similarities to make it relevant.

Also, girls only want boyfriends who have great skills, so... I'd better get some skills.