My job currently entails interviewing dozens of people each week for seasonal positions, and in the hundreds of interviews I've conducted I've learned a lot about myself and a lot about people in general. One of the most interesting things I've seen candidates do is respond to the information I present to them in ways that can only be interpreted as discomfort, disengagement, and even disagreement. Which is actually fine. I think there are many wonderful people out there for whom this is not the right job. The interesting thing that some of these interviewees do, however, is at the end of the conversation, make very emphatic statements about wanting to do the work. Some even go so far as to say they can't imagine anything they would rather be doing.

Trying to make sense of these passionate claims in light of conduct that clearly contradicts them is a fascinating study in human nature. It has started me thinking on the places in my own life where I believe I want a particular outcome, but my actions or my instincts belie such a claim. And I wonder in moments like this if it's a matter of lacking self-awareness -- do these candidates simply not see the discrepancy that is so obvious to me, and do I have such a disconnect within myself that allows my active will and the more subconscious elements of myself to be at odds in this way? -- or is there something else getting in the way here? Is it pride, perhaps, or fear, or a sense of obligation, the feeling that I should want a particular thing? And I wonder if I slowed myself down enough to look long and hard at these supposed objects of desire, would I be able to see with enough clarity and honesty to admit that I don't (in part at least) really want them? And would I be willing to start the work of bringing my conscious and instinctual responses to the interview of life into alignment?