Batman’s nemesis the Joker, was by his own admission, a guy without a plan, and that isn’t half bad as a career plan.

And therein lies the best career advice I could possibly dispense: just DO things. Chase after the things that interest you and make you happy. Stop acting like you have a set path, because you don’t. No one does. You shouldn’t be trying to check off the boxes of life; they aren’t real and they were created by other people, not you. There is no explicit path I’m following, and I’m not walking in anyone else’s footsteps. I’m making it up as I go.

It seems I have more in common with The Joker than I thought…

Which one are you?

I’d rather be a maker than an employee. I’d rather craft products than nurse a job. And I’d rather be a customer than a boss.

Not all of us have the desire to end up in an office environment at the end of our schooling, so why are education systems seemingly intent on directing us into cubicle based careers?

Some people are hustled off to college, then to the cubicle, against their own inclinations and natural bents, when they would rather be learning to build things or fix things. One shop teacher suggested to me that “in schools, we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention and engagement. Without the opportunity to learn through the hands, the world remains abstract and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged.”

It’s short wonder many people end up unfulfilled at work when they don’t really take time to think through what they would really like to do:

So why do so many of us perceive ourselves as being so terribly misaligned with our right work? Upbringing can have something to do with it. A client once confessed: “My father told me I had three career options. I could be a doctor, an engineer or a failure.”