By some estimates, your career will take up around 80,000 hours of your adult life—and, whichever way you look at it, that’s an enormous amount of time. Little wonder then that most of us are preoccupied with figuring out the right career: how can we invest our own 80,000 hours in a way that feels meaningful, leads us toward our goals, and taps into our natural interests and talents?

Unfortunately, there’s no straightforward answer to these questions.