You ain't got no job, you ain't got shit to do

So yes, it's important to have a job. It's important to further your career and take steps towards building the foundation for future employment. My question is this: If you're not sure what you want, if you're not certain you know what career to pursue, or in what flavor that career will present itself, are you screwed from here on out? Is there a deadline for deciding your direction?

Lately I've been wondering if it isn't better to keep your mind open to all possibilities, to all possible twists and turns that might be ahead. I've been spending the last four years trying to convince poor med students to spend too much money on books - books we just end up throwing away when a new edition arrives. Literally, into the garbage can. I don't think this is right, but it's my job and I salvage what I can. I spend too much time researching the daily value of the Euro and creating labels from conference attendee lists. You want to know why you get so much junk mail? I know why, and I know how to get your name.

But this is not what I want. I don't want to be a marketeer for the rest of my life, nor do I have any interest in sales or advertising. I happen to be pretty good at my job, but I just don't care that much. So, in the fall, I hope to move on to other things. The other things I have lined up, namely production and design, are a throwback to my days on the yearbook staff moving picas around and cropping awful pictures of the band teacher. I happen to love doing this, but it has been awhile. I didn't have to worry about parsing SGML code from FrameMaker files or preflight PDFs back in the day - the oh-so-ancient times of the mid-90's (how I miss them). So I'm pretty sure that this will not only be going back to something I love, but also an opportunity to learn a ton of stuff in the electronic publishing realm. Fine. Good by me.

But all of this leads me back to my point. If I'm not completely sure that publishing is the career for me, is this a waste of time? Should I go ahead on the assumption that publishing is where I'll end up, or should I test a couple of other flavors while I'm still young and (cough, ahem) unmarried? It's always good to be employed, no question there. And since I'm fairly certain this is the industry for me, I can feel fairly comfortable moving ahead. They say you should do something that makes you happy - make your hobbies your career. I'm a reader and a writer, so this makes some sense. But if I have to start a blog to force myself to write often, and if the book I'm reading has been sitting on my nightstand for almost 10 months, are these clues that what I'm actually more suited for is watching TV and playing video games? Can I be a professional coffee drinker and cigarette smoker? Are there jobs for people whose hobby is finding excuses to leave work early?

Today it's 75 degrees and I'd like to find employment that requires me to walk through the city with the sun on my face and the breeze at my back. Barring that, an office with a window would be nice.