I saw a few of my old friends from high school over the holidays. We haven't seen each other in several years, so there was a lot of catching up to do. I really enjoyed our little reunion.

One friend (now a teacher) and I talked at length about how our high school experiences and acquaintances influenced our careers. We agreed that our honors English teacher had the single greatest impact.

The subject resurfaced in a recent conversation I had with a free-lance writer. We debated the issue of doing what you enjoy most as a career.

The writer insisted that you can earn a basic living doing anything, so you should choose the 'career of your dreams,' even if it seems impractical. She believes that doing your 'dream job' will make you truly happy.

I, however, think that happiness involves much more than simply doing enjoyable tasks to earn a basic living. Income, job environment (i.e., people, surroundings, stress level), and many other work-related factors have a critical impact on the rest of your life. Life is a balance of many things -- even a 'dream job' won't bring happiness if it causes other aspects of your life to fall terribly short of your expectations.

For example, I enjoyed drawing and painting in high school more than anything else. However, I didn't major in art in college. Why? Because the type of art that I truly enjoy only produces profit if you are the one person in a billion that happens to become famous. (Obviously, my 'dream job' is not working as a commercial artist or medical illustrator.) Otherwise, you may be able to eek out a living, but not much of one. I value stability and -- well -- eating. Therefore, I could never be happy blissfully painting portraits for 40 hours each week if I had to suffer through the remaining 121 hours.

Therefore, my recipe for happiness is to find a career that balances all of the aspects of life that you value most. Sometimes, that involves compromise.

I think that it is possible to take elements of your 'dream job' and work them into a 'real' job that fits into your desired total lifestyle. That's what I've done.

My degree is not in art, communications, or computing, yet I spend most of my time developing intranet web sites at work, which certainly requires skills in those areas. My job is not my 'dream job' (i.e., painter or, perhaps, novelist -- or rock star, of course), but I like it. And, I work for a nice, stable company where I earn a steady income that supports a reasonable lifestyle. (I continue to eat.) This makes me, on the whole, happy.

So, where does the honors English teacher fit into this discussion? Well, I wouldn't be doing the job I do today if it weren't for her. My job actually started out very differently. (Who even heard of the web a few years ago?) It evolved into what it is today based on skills that I demonstrated and agendas that I pushed. To get career-influencing people to notice these skills and agendas I relied on my excellent communication skills. (Sorry for the boast, but humility doesn't cut it in the business world.) I have found that communication skills are extremely valuable and, surprisingly, quite rare in the business world. With these skills, you can almost always win support for ideas (not necessarily your ideas), build alliances, and, therefore, be of great value to those at the top of the organization. My communications skills have proven to be the skills that continue to help me achieve my goals, professionally and otherwise.

(Here's the teacher part...)

My great fortune was having an honors English teacher that taught me how to write and speak with clarity and impact. Among the dozens of science, math, and other courses that I took, English emerged as the most powerful. I never would have guessed that when I was in school. Fortunately for me, Miss Teare did.