Your post really rung true with me. At 28, I've gone to law school, spent two years as a lawyer, two years with a private foundation in North Carolina, and am now working at a community foundation in Florida. I've loved every job I had (although I hated the law firm hours and longed for more meaningful cases, I loved the work) — but I feel like I've basically just continued my liberal arts education into adulthood (with the added bonus of getting paid for it). I love having a steep learning curve and the challenge of figuring out how to do something better and better and better. I love being flexible and having the courage to take on something new – even if I have no idea how to do it. But when I left my last job, as I drafted a long transition memo synthesizing all that I'd learned for the purpose of passing it on to the person who took over after me (who, of course, will not be able to learn from someone else's transition memo, but will have to start from scratch and figure out his own way to do the job based on his own skill set and experience), I felt sad. I realized I had spent two years learning – at the Foundation's and our grantees' expense – and I had JUST really figured out how to do it well…but I wouldn't have the opportunity to do anything extraordinary or exciting with that knowledge or those skills. So, when I left NC to come to this job, I made a promise to myself that I'd let myself settle in here, learn how to be really good at it, and then STAY…and hopefully, by sticking around, I'll be able to accomplish something lasting and meaningful.

One more thing. I think we have an opportunity (we meaning our generation) to set aside the quest for “higher, higher” and instead prioritize our career advancement by how much we are challenged, engaged, and inspired to do our jobs. The corporate ladder simply doesn't exist in the increasingly-popular non-traditional careers many of us will experience over the course of our lives. So instead of a clear path to the top of the ladder, I think we'll find ourselves taking steps that are ambiguously horizontal…but yet are “steps up” in the sense that we are more fulfilled, more excited about our work, and trying something new.

It's a dreary day and I'm philosophizing, so I apologize if I'm speaking nonsense.

To me, the key is finding and defining that crux around which your career will hinge. The hub from which various jobs and opportunities will spring from. For some people that'll be an issue, for others a community, and for others a style of work (reporting, teaching, organizing, etc). But I think if we're able to discover and define that hub–and, much as the 20s is about defining that, it seems like the earlier the better–we're then somewhat liberated to pursuing the various pieces of that dream. To me, that goes beyond higher salaries or “advancing” in any sort of traditional corporate ladder sense and allows folks to relish the roles they're playing now because they know that when that role no longer engages or causes excitement they can change roles but stay true to whatever is core to their calling.

But Anderson's message seemed to be “master one thing and then move on to master another.” Certainly, mastering different things is important, especially when they all tie to a greater goal. But I still have a sense (and this moves beyond Anderson's post) that our generation is trained to always be aiming for the next thing. Like the saying, “don't dress for the job you have, dress for the job you want.” That's always kinda irked me. It's certainly sage advice… but there's a point at which you need to stop aiming high and just concentrate on getting things done.

And also, for what it's worth — by no means am I saying that I or my peers need to find a vocation right now and stick with it. I don't blame anyone in their 20s for trying new things every few years and get a taste of what's out there. But I am just a little worried — and I hope I don't offend our friends over at BC — about us all becoming “brazen careerists.” I'm worried that our goal will be promotion instead of devotion; advancement instead of substance; compensation instead of contribution.

For example, in the post from Penelope's post where she kindly linked to us, one of her pieces of advice was this:

You earn a higher salary if you are good looking. This bias runs so deep that even better looking babies get better treatment from mothers. So forget social justice and just get Botox.

That frightens me, that someone would consider it worthwhile to alter the body God gave them in order to push their salary a little higher. Count me out.