AAAH, THE DREAM JOB. Wildlife veterinar-ian, creator of eco-friendly outerwear, private scuba instructor to Heidi Klum—there are so many! And everyone can imagine such a vocation, even someone as successful as Vladimir Nabokov, who, though already famous, still dreamed of curating butterflies for a living. The question, of course, is how to get it.

This is difficult to answer. Throughout history, whether you were fated to be a coal miner or a castrato, you expected work to hurt. Today, with the job market as crappy as it is, it can be especially enticing to picture employment so rewarding that you'd do it without pay. As best I can tell, there are two approaches to making your dream come true.

First, the professional plan: Decide at an early age what your goal is and take the necessary steps. Study chemistry at MIT, intern at Stay Puft, and then win a Nobel Prize for inventing the perfect chocolate-chip marshmallow.

The other approach is bohemian, a more exploratory route popularized by Joseph Campbell's catchphrase "Follow your bliss." If you stay true to your heart, Campbell promised in the 1988 PBS series about his ideas, "doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be."

My mother, whose bliss was apparently business consulting, watched that series. Upon hearing this, she slapped the arm of the sofa, bought the Campbell videos, and subjected my younger sister and me to repeated viewings. This would be our path.

After high school, it was. I eschewed job training at Maine's Colby College for a create-your-own-adventure-type major. "Self and society" was unique in many ways, not least because it was the only degree more unemployable than philosophy, my second major.

Senior year, following my bliss even further, I formed a rebel group called the Ideal College Project, which crusaded against capitalism, apathy, and the college's brochure, among other things. The ICP's bullhorn rallies and direct-action campaigns lasted a couple of glorious weeks before its members quit to study for finals. Except me. I sent our 2,000-word manifesto to everyone from lunch ladies to trustees. My grandiose critique of academics and campus life ("A wash of maundering minds and uncommitted spirits bleach the campus …") promptly crashed hundreds of e-mail accounts. Undeterred, I decided that we of the ICP (meaning I) needed to dramatize the cause with a hunger strike.

Fasting in a tent on the main quad, I gathered petition signatures. The deans responded by tempting me with a bag of glazed doughnuts.

By day five, time was running out (a woman I loved was about to visit), so I pressed the issue by sitting Indian style outside the president's office. Soon, he kindly agreed to respond and I was free to fail the last of my exams.

All of which is to say that, by graduation day 1997, I was excited for Campbell's hidden doors to open—and as prepared as any man can be to live with his parents.