Blogtrek

Dobson Syndrome

I am seeking a post-retirement job, so I have been finding ways of rating possible job prospects. I came up with several criteria, two of which are desire and skills. The first describes what I want to do; those jobs dealing with things I am most interested in. The second deals with the knowledge and skills I bring to the job. Which jobs can I do the best. I tried to devise an overall index including these two scales and found them to be so correlated that I am reduced to considering them as a single scale. In other words, I am most interested in what I am best at doing, and vice versa. That seemed logical to me, and it is verified by several job-seeking and self help books I have.

Then I got the word. It is not true. There are people and jobs such that what the person is best at doing is not what the person really wants to do. The example I got this morning is an 87-year-old astronomer named John Dobson. Earlier in his life, he invented the Dobsonian telescope to help bring astronomy to everyone with a simple design. As of late, however, he has been more interested in theories of the universe and in the boundary between science and religion. This means when he gives talks to amateur astronomer groups, he wants to talk about these metaphysical theories, but the astronomers want him to talk about telescope, especially his own design. It is not a happy situation.

And it shows that it is not necessarily true that what you want to do is what you are best at doing. Dobson wants to talk about metaphysics, but he is best at making telescopes. I call this Dobson Syndrome and feel it can hinder you in finding what you really want to do for a living. How can it happen? One guess is that a person changes as he gets older, so what interested him in his younger days does not interest him any more, but he remains skilled in the area. Another is that what you really want to do is not desired by others, so you go into something else that you are skilled at and people appreciate but you don't like to do it.

At this moment the only thing I can say for how to deal with Dobson Syndrome is either to get interested in what you do the best, or get others interested in what you really want to do. This could be hard, and it means that my two scales of desire and skills/knowledge need to be considered separately.