The Best 20 Jobs
February 29, 2008 Best Jobs No CommentsHow do we measure success? For most, if not everyone, it is the amount of money, cashed in our pockets. How much we earn has become the bar for success, as what can be bought with nothing nowadays.
No matter what country you come from, the same pattern is generally the same. We go to school then get a job after graduation so we can pay the bills or make ends meet. We are pressured to earn to the point that sometimes we forsake “happiness” forgetting that a job should be an extension of one’s self. A job is not just for earning money but also accomplishing a sense of fulfillment.
Theoretically, the “perfect” job should be the act of earning enough money to support your lifestyle and doing the thing you love doing.
1. School Teacher
How many people get the opportunity to inspire such young minds at the dawn of their lives? They have the chance not only to give education but instill a love of learning. Though, materially especially in some countries, they will never be truly compensated, teaching won’t fetch you that summer home but will get you the life long respect of the pupils that you have taught.
2. Writer
One of my favorite writers said,
“A writer needs time to be tested in his/her value. Having success in life means nothing. Success in life has too much to do with fashion, publicity, and so on. A writer stays a writer after his death or many years after his/her books were published. Also, a writer is a writer when his work goes beyond the limits and frontiers of the language he/she writes in. Because a writer must be universal, timeless, and spaceless.”—Oriana Fallaci
If you have the gift for words, why not?
Starting out to becoming a writer will not come in a silver platter. But to be read, to be able to express your ideas is worth a lifetime of experiences.
3. Surf Instructor
It has been said that surfing is the sport of kings. And it’s true terms of it was the sport of kings and the Polynesian island, and that it takes a certain skill to be able to ride on waves and feel like a “king”. You can say that surfers are kings in their own world.
But this world is welcome to all, especially if you love the great outdoors in all its glory, the ocean and the waves in particular. The surf instructor is your guide to the world of the sea and the waves and how to ride it. They will teach the terms “surf lingo” such as : drop, nose-dive, trimming, etc. They will teach you the basics : no starts out as an expert. As the saying goes; “You have to crawl before you can walk”. Or in a surfer’s point of view, you have to paddle before you can ride. And probably the most underrated yet most important part of all is that they are there as your lifeguards. Lets face it, the sea can take you if you are careless and prone to mistakes. If you drown, you there’s no complaining to management. A surf instructor present will virtually eliminate nearly all possibilities of drowning.
What more can you ask for? This job has it all. Lifeguard, wave-rider, and king.
4. Photographer
Cameras are available as ever. Everyone has one. No matter the purpose, human beings are obsessed of taking photos. Perhaps, behind this obsession is the
yearning to immortalize the moment. To capture the moment in pictures is to capture part of truth and reality for the memory may be long but how it remembers reality isn’t as strong as we think. For that we need pictures. And through pictures, we remember weddings, birthdays, graduations in perfect still details. And yes, people will pay to get hold of these moments as they are living them. Turn your hobby into an earning opportunity.
5. Home Based Entrepreneur
How many of us are stuck in a 9-5 job? Almost everyone. Thing is, the 9-5 job extends to non working hours because we have deadlines, which the boss wants not tomorrow but today.
There is an alternative.
You CAN be your own boss. You CAN be the owner without forcing yourself to wake up everyday fighting with your body and mind to go to work. These days, home based entrepreneurs are spreading like mushroom providing people the means to earn while having their time for themselves. To succeed however in this venture, you must have the dedication and determination since you will be the center of decision making to make your business work.
6. Traveler
There is an unspoken need in all of us to travel. For even those whose feet are firmly planted on the ground will feel the tug of wander lust. For those who refuse or play deaf to its call will be doomed to live lives that are incomplete. Such is the human need to travel. To be able to explore the world around us, if not around other continents, at least around the city, the village square, or the next island. For it is very human to be able to say that “this is the world around me, and I have traveled it.”
Few people get the chance to travel abroad, let alone be paid for doing. Take for example the authors of Lonely Planet. They have not only traveled, but experienced all that it has to offer. Few foreigners can boast of knowing more about a country than its locals, and travelers are among these few.
7. Digital Artist
With the advent of computers, there was no stopping the fabrication of various solutions related to this piece of technology. In the advent of digital age, everything digital can be edited in the computer. When we say digital art, it refers to “ art created on a computer in digital form”. How many of us have not yet tinkered with our digital photos to get rid of that zit or adjust the brightness of an image?
Digital Art’s popularity has extended widely, that when looking for jobs, digital artists are commonly sought after. People still debate however, if digitally created images is a form of art and not of technology. In today’s world, art shouldn’t be limited to its old age definition, but in a manner an expression of the creative self. So if you are good in tinkering, editing, and creating with your computer, be a digital artist.
8. Comic Book Artist
Not everybody has the ability to draw. And for those of us who can draw and want a career out of it, then a comic book artist is a dream job in itself. All you have to do is draw what the comic book writer visualizes. Which is a culmination of what an artist is all about anyway, bringing clarity through visual detail. In terms of it being a job, all you have to do is to draw sketches and to scan and email them to your writers/principal. You don’t even have to color your own work, as many of these comic book companies, such as Marvel, DC, Vertigo, etc, have different people to ink and color as well.
9. Film Director
Film Directors are tasked on being the “modern day story tellers”. “Video killed the radio star” as the song goes. Today’s audience does not simply want video to go along with audio, it wants a story as well.
If it weren’t for film directors, films would very much be like watching a homemade video. A film directors job is not only to make the audience see the story in his eyes, but to present the audience with multiple viewpoints, and to incite emotions and relation towards the story, whatever it may be
10. Environmentalist
The industrial civilization has posted threat to the environment. Nowadays, the consequence of industrialism is very much evident.
If you have much concern for mother nature, join non-government organizations fighting for this cause.
The earth is our legacy for our children and for more generations to come. Acting now means acting for the future. Environmentalists play the role of guardians of earth.
11. Musician
Music is food for the soul. Musicians are its purveyors. Can you imagine a world without Mozart? A world without the Beatles? A world without music? Each and everyone of us has the ability to understand, experience and feel music. Musicians are the ones who play at night in bars or in restaurants. Musicians are the ones you hear on the radio. Musicians are the poets speaking not in words, but in instrument and song.
The world has place for musicians that is certain, but its critics are harsh. But then those who have the gift of music should not waste it, despite the odds. I’ve heard once that musicians may have the smallest apartments, but they have the biggest hearts.
12. Tour Guide
Being a tour guide is like being a school teacher, or a “pocket” history teacher at least. For a whole afternoon you can enthrall an audience (who’s paying you generously for your time by the way) with your words and its bits of knowledge and wisdom. There’s an art in being a tour guide. The good ones are easily distinguished from the bad ones, being that the ones seem more like boring history teachers. A good tour guide will make the place, the time, its lessons and its characters to life.
13. Marketing Specialist
Wherever there is a market, there is the need to produce and consume. To bring this two concepts together, there is a need for a marketer to market the goods to consumers. What is interesting about being in marketing is the chance to design, create and deliver. You become a strategist.
Human brain releases a special chemical which make us happy whenever we learn something new. Thus there is a need even a desire to learn because anything that is new poses the challenge which are brains biologically needs. The marketing sphere just provides that challenge for every project.
14. Comedian
Being a stand-up comedian is no easy task. These people spend hours preparing their routines. Not to mention the countless hours gathering material. Making the world laugh after all, is no laughing matter. Everyone who steps on top of a stage two perform should only have one fear. The silent apathy of an audience. This resonates even more so with a comedian. Whose measure for success is something very spontaneous and unforced: laughter.
But no one can deny the positive effects of laughter. Even doctors agree that “laughter is the best medicine”. The chemical known as dopamine is really when a person is health has healing properties. This topic is best left to a neurologist to expound on, but the truth is: laughter does so much better than worse.
Some comedians have made a career out of being, well, comedians. Television hosts such as Conan O’Brien, David Letterman and Jay Leno have become household names. So have comedians like Will Farrell, and Charlie Chaplin, though I mention them in the same breath only for examples sake, not to denote them as equals. But laughter is equal in one aspect: it makes people happy.
15. Production Designer
Robert Boyle, a well known American production designer claimed that production design is the physical interpretation of the script. In creating the setting, one is providing a physical interpretation, most of all, adds emotional truth to the script.
The breathtaking production designs of movies and theater plays sprung from the creative minds of the Production Designer. They have the vision to present the right visual and spatial elements that will express the theme and mood or more the emotion of the film.
Production design is not limited to props alone. They say, like an actor, production design is a “visual medium” drawing reaction form the audience.
Wouldn’t it be fun creating a world of your own?
16. Actor
Some would say that an actor’s job borders on schizophrenia. This term would be both accurate and inaccurate. Actors after all, have to take on the persona of the character they are playing. Including feelings and emotions are part of the package, however emotionally nerve wracking and unhealthy it may be for the mental health of a person. But the powers that actors possess are unrivaled when they are engrossed in their own private worlds. Worlds that make us laugh, cry, angry and sad. They make us feel human. Actors bridge us to the other people. They put us, no they force us, with their riveting performances to view the through another’s eyes by them pretending to be other people. For them to put on another person’s shoes, so to speak.
No one can also deny that some of the most famous people in the world are in the acting business . We need not look for Hollywood, California to see the pinnacle of acting. Asian, and European theater and cinema are flourishing, not just in terms of being artistically pleasing and fulfilling, but financially as well. As a speech in the Oscar’s once went : Make art! Make art! Make art. To act is to make art, with or without the financial success.
17. Chef
It has been said that cooking is one of the fine arts. A chef in particular, is a master of this very fine art. A chef can transforms raw materials into the most delectable dishes by the simple application of a knife, adding materials and spices to balance the flavor, and in most cases exposure to heat. A chef not only needs genius, he needs inspiration and a distraction free kitchen as well.
Have you ever seen the show “Iron Chef” and its American counterpart: “Iron Chef America”? Well these two shows have something in common, in fact all chefs in the world have something in common. They are all fascinated by the art of cooking, and they take their business very seriously. The look on their faces are as intense as a professional athlete’s. Their precision and perfectionism give them temperaments to rival that of eccentric artists. But once their fine dishes are tasted, they not only satisfy the stomach, they satisfy the soul.
18. Event Planner
Events, events, events! There will always be events. All sorts from festivities, weddings, conventions and where there are events, there will be a need for event planners. To be an event planner is to be tasked with all aspects of planning the gathering. Your organizational skills as well as creativity will pay up.
19. Yoga Instructor
Yoga originated from India. It has been a long form of spiritual practice that has now infiltrated other culture outside of its origins. Normally, the first assumption on yoga, is that it’s a physical thing, associated with the practice of “asanas” or postures. However, aside from reaping the benefits of being physically fit , practicing yoga is also a form of meditation, cleansing both body and mind toxics. Yoga instructors are living symbols of what yoga stands for. The ancient art originating from India, which not only promotes a healthy mind, but a healthy body. Yoga is not just an exercise fad, a cosmopolitan system of fitness just because celebrities endorse it. It’s an ancient tradition, it’s a way of life which gives relief to body and soul.
20. Librarian
“Oh sure”, you might think. Sadly, our society have typified the librarian as a stiff, old sphinx cooped up around books silencing anyone whose voice is rising in decibels. But librarians are more than just keeper of books. They are the guardians of it. Not just the physical aspect of the book, but they are tasked with loaning them out as well. It is their job to make sure that the borrower gets whatever book he needs. It is their task to instill a love of reading not just for students and academics, but for whoever who wants it. For we all have something in common as human beings : we all have a need and a desire to learn.
