I'm sure that everyone has heard the good news by now: times they are a-changin' and you don't have to pick just one career path anymore. You can pursue several at the same time and thereby become a "slash careerist," to borrow a term from Marci Alboher, author of "One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work/Life Success". (Alboher also writes a Shifting Careers column for the New York Times, and her Hey Marci blog has some interesting earlier posts on managing career shifts.)
In her book, Alboher argues that we no longer need to stick to a single work identity. Examples of "slash careerists": lawyer/chef, surgeon/playwright, pilates instructor/art dealer, computer programmer/theater director. The numbers of "slash careerists" are growing, as more and more people are trying to pursue something they feel passionate about without losing the earnings that come with a profession they trained for and pursued for a long time.
Reading Alboher's book made me look around my own life and realize that I have lots of "slash careerists" among my friends. One friend is a tenured university professor and a yoga instructor. Another is a television producer, travel writer, and owner of a company running fantastic archaeological tours of Turkey. Yet another is a COO of a boutique consulting firm and a naturopathic doctor/aromatherapist. I myself have done this at various points in my life.
And today's article in The Wall Street Journal, "Doubling Up on Careers Suits More Workers" is further evidence that this trend is becoming increasingly widespread. (The site requires subscription, so you may or may not be able to access the article.)
But here's what I'm stuck on. WSJ notes that there can be downsides to scaling back on your initial career to make room for the new one. The potential loss of health insurance is one such drawback. And as much as I hate to agree with anything WSJ says - and as much as I believe that health insurance is a poor substitute for creating meaning in your life and following your passion - truth is, some situations can be really tough.
What if, for example, your job makes you miserable, but you stay because you've been diagnosed with a serious illness, as is the case with someone who's very dear to me? Situations like that make my blood boil, because how about this for a conundrum: You become hostage to a toxic work environment because of your illness, but this toxic work environment only likely worsens your condition, as toxic emotional environments inevitably do. So you stay at your job to get health care, but the job increases the likelihood that you'll need the said health care...
The idealist in me wants to believe that there are options even in such situations. Some companies, especially in the non-profit and academic world, do offer health insurance even if you work part time. But what if the company you're with doesn't? Well, in that case, maybe it's time to start a revolution against a system that makes us choose between having a life we'd like to live and health care...
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