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One of my good friends from high school gave me a book awhile back called “Finding Your Own North Star”, which is essentially a book about figuring out what you really want to do when you grow up.

Most of us muddle through, one job leads to another, and then you find yourself trapped by “the golden handcuffs”. You know, that thing where it’s uninspiring and you struggle in every day, it isn’t something you actively enjoy, but it pays well, has good benefits, etc etc.

So what to do? You need the financial security, but the notion of this being the next twenty years makes you feel slightly panicky.

Start looking at what you actually enjoy doing, what you like to do in your spare time and what would be the most amazing thing to be able to be paid to do. And then think of some way that you could be paid to do it. Think it’s impossible? It isn’t.

Let’s say you love to read. What could you do that pays you to read? Hmmm. Researcher. Fact checker. Editor. Compiler of news stories for a headline website. There are a WHOLE lot of possibilities out there.

What if your interests seem a little less business-feasible? I have a friend who prefers animals to people, and has started a dog walking business in the downtown area, and is wildly successful. Urban professionals want a pet but can’t manage some of the associated tasks. She’s smart – she kept her day job until the pet business took off enough that she could lose the day to day grind in favour of Stanley Park and puppies.

I have a friend (several, actually) whose interest lies in all things sci-fi and comic. He’s started buying and selling comic figures on EBay. While this may not make him a mint to start with, it’s a step in the right direction to his (eventual) dream of running comic cons all around the world.

So where will I be? Reading books such as “Finding Your Own North Star” to figure out what I want to do and how to make it real. Care to join me?