fairy tale career or fairy tale romance? how do you choose?

Whether in a movie on screen or the movie you call your “real life” – career and romance are pitted against one another to create a great deal of angst as well as drama.

Seems hard to create happiness in both. And that’s how it looks in the tabloids too.

It’s a choice for sure, but not in the way that you’re thinking.

Ponder this – think about and really reflect on the ‘formula’ for success you were prescribed to avoid life’s disappointments and failures. It probably went something like this:

The greatest career myth passed on from yonder is the one that warns you to first and foremost excel academically, so that you can then find yourself in a lucrative career quite simply because this is the only way. Once that happens then love can fall into place. You will surely be happy because you did it all in the right order and didn’t compromise your success along the way. And if you’re a girl, you were certainly warned not to dare get pregnant as that would definitely have been frowned upon.

And if you really, seriously thought about it: An earnest pursuit of this path to success would result in someone that felt a lot less than whole and far away from being truly human. It would be nearly impossible to self-recognize work worthy of your spirit’s strength and there would be no romantic partner that felt like 1+1=3. And since no one actually lives this way and many suffer trying, it’s really no wonder then that two of the things you desire most often feel like “frienemies” at best requiring compromise so that neither is as fulfilling as you get the inkling they could be.

But that’s unfortunately the way it’s supposed to be done for so-called “ideal results.”

Lets put a stop to this right now and acknowledge that one of the best things that you can do for your career is to take the hand of the one that is rightfully yours. The good news is that a love career and love relationship aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. We just make it seem so because both require the commitment of marriage.

Your real purpose and real work in this case is to journey deeply with both in your life because that’s what you yearn for. I know because that’s what I used to yearn for – for the feeling of symbiosis between the two not realizing that I had a hand in making it so. But in order for that to happen, you first need to grant yourself permission to no longer take on responsibilities in jobs and in romance that you don’t ultimately want. This is just a habit based on a lack of trust in life when you’re taught that security is more important than freedom, stability is more important than adventure, containment is more important than expression.

This pain is the pain of believing in dichotomies.

What you don’t know that you need to know is that your most playful career and your life’s playmate are reflections of how you love you. And if you love you the way you want to be loved, then those other two relationships will ultimately support each other.

Is it always “bunnies and roses?” as my darling husband likes to say. No – and that’s not the point. The point of wanting what you truly desire and not what was conditioned for you to desire, lies in the process of “becoming.”

A dream, a desire, a fairy tale ending is really a calling from you to become (the real) you.

And to accomplish this, you need to make real choices and not fabricated ones instead.

Like: “fairy tale career or fairy tale romance” can be a conscious or unconscious choice.

Here’s a reminder of some conscious choices – decisions you usually have some awareness of making (that you’ve maybe even lost sleep over):

Going to university or not going to university this year.

Getting a BA or getting a BBA.

Applying to for a PhD or going to the workforce after graduation.

The red shoes or the black shoes with this outfit.

Skirt or pants today.

Law school or Master’s program next or neither.

Long sleeve or short sleeve.

Longer hair or shorter hair.

Quitting the job or staying in the job.

Spending your money on a house renovations or spending your money on world travel.

Moving to a new apartment or staying in the one you’re already in.

When you pit romance and career against one another (two things that have the capacity to simultaneously co-exist) you’re pitting two things you want against each other which reads like:

Breakfast today or dinner today.

Go to the bathroom today or not go to the bathroom today.

Blink or not blink.

It’s madness because those are unconscious (aka built into your being) choices.

Have a lot more than a little faith that if you want a romantic career and a successful relationship, you need to be utterly you to get them because not being you will never allow the two to co-exist. Transform this unconscious decision into something in alignment with your heart’s desire for the results you actually want.

Especially if this is what you wish with a true heart.