a job you like vs. a job that helps people vs. a job that pays the bills

Ha: I balance these by endlessly insisting that proofreading really does help make the world a better place.

That's actually more of a serious answer than it seems -- I think what happens to most people is that they look for jobs that will pay the bills, stay with the ones they enjoy the most, and then slowly discover the quiet dignity and importance of whatever it is they do. That last part might contain elements of rationalization and self-convincing ("someone's got to sell this malt liquor" or "this way I can make a difference from the inside"), but really I think it's the same thing that people have done forever, which is accepting that they're probably not going to make huge gestures toward the world and will probably just have some small positive effect that nobody else notices -- at some point you're like "you know what, people need staples, and maybe it's not glamorous, but by filling out this report I'm serving as a dependable cog in a complex, fascinating system that gets metro-area offices the staples they need."

this sounds like one of those "pick two" joeks

Does anyone remember the bank commercial featuring a dude who was in the business of making buttons, and he talked about how buttons seem insignificant, but they put food on his family's table, which makes his children happy, etc., and then they had the tagline, "It's your life's work. Does your bank understand that?" Shit got me all choked up, just about every time.

The first is most important for me but I've usually found that without a balance of numbers 2 and 3, I won't have 1.

i used to really like my job. in some ways i still do. but while i used to be able to convince myself that subediting made the world a better place, and that newspapers were a vital part of a healthy democracy etc etc, these days i just think: hmm, i bust my balls designing beautiful pages/writing wonderful headlines/worrying about all kind of pedantic shit ... and what's the end result? budgets still get slashed, sales still fall, the majority of people don't really give a fuck. oh, and our shareholders get richer. meh.

i've gone way further than i ever expected to or wanted to within my career. i guess i'm good at what i do, but whereas i used to see it as a vocation - no, seriously! - now it's just a job that i still enjoy about 50% of the time and which happens to pay me very well.

to cut a very long story short, i've spent a lot of time this year thinking about what i might want to do, and talking to people about it (including a careers advisor), and the upshot is i'm going to start some voluntary work in my spare time, with a view to seeing if there's other stuff out there i might enjoy more. perhaps i'll find a new vocation. perhaps i'll hate it. all i know is that for a long time i've taken my job far, far too seriously, and that there's a lot more useful stuff i could be doing, in some way, shape or form.

so i've got a plan in place, and next week i'll begin putting it into practice. like i say: it might turn out to be a load of old wank. but i can't carry on subbing away for the rest of my life and doing nothing else. and the idea of progressing even a millimetre further up the greasy journalism pole chills me to my very core.

so that's how i've balanced it. key realisation: you're never stuck in a rut. there's always something else you could be doing, and it's never too late to give it a try. once i realised that, it was like the albatross had been lifted.