Today I took a picture of a man cuddling a lamb carcass.

One of our local butchers had a win in a butchering competition, so I met him to do a story and grab some photos. Naturally, this resulted in a few awkward poses with a skinned lamb hanging on a hook, as well as some entertained co-workers and customers.

As I am writing this, I still have blood stained fingers, as I made the fatal error of shaking the young butcher’s hand after the shoot was done. But as I look down at my hand (with slight disgust), I’m inflated with a sense of hope. Not only do I have a good “I’ve got blood on my hands” anecdote, but I’ve got more evidence of a young guy who doesn’t suck at life.

Despite all the chat being thrown at young people, here’s a guy who’s doing something he likes and giving it a red hot go.

As he was rattling off all the various ways he “value added” a lamb in six hours, it was clear that this was a guy who really enjoyed what he was doing. This guy has found his “thing” and that “thing” is slicing up animals for a living.

The common narrative that I see in opinion pieces written by my young amigos out there is that job satisfaction is as elusive as a unicorn who vomits up gold and cupcakes. Us young guns love a good complain. A good venting session is therapeutic, and it’s fairly entertaining to read/listen to. But after a while, it gets pretty deflating and many young people are losing confidence that they can actually find a job that they will enjoy.

I can’t talk – I’ve got a pretty sweet gig. I have business cards, I occasionally get to be the “celebrity guest judge” at the local primary school’s Book Week Costume Parade and someone actually prints my opinions each week. As far as jobs go, mine is quite fun.

At a party of current and past students, I was confronted with the bleak job prospects they faced. Two friends who had heaps of experience were still unable to land a job. As such, I’m constantly reminded of how lucky I am to have a job that I actually enjoy. While I wouldn’t put it down to just luck, I do agree that I am lucky. I worked and do work hard to be where I am, because writing is my slicing of meat – it’s my thing. And I worked at it because that’s what I wanted to get paid to do. However, I think it’s luckier that I discovered that writing is my slicing of meat – it’s my “thing”.

Some people can go through life not knowing what they actually want. They may flit from job to job without any clear idea of what they want to do.Young people heading into the workforce probably have reason to feel anxious, but it’s not a lost cause. You need to find the thing that makes you happy, and you need to find a way for your “thing” to make you money – this can get tricky. Maybe your “thing” is hard to get into or doesn’t make you much at the start, but it is worth holding on to and sticking it out. So if you’ve found something you like, you cling on to that metaphorical lamb carcass representing your dreams.