Oh, you have a dream and you want to pursue a career in it. You think that the position would be awesome and you’ll be living a pretty luxurious life. But are you sure that your fancy looking dream job is not going to turn into a nightmare? Well, men have many dreams about a job that will lead to money, fame, pleasure, and freedom.

When you think of your dream job, it looks like you’ll get everything with it. Things look so easy when you visualize yourself doing what you have always dreamt about. And TV dramas are always there to maintain that ‘cool’ image of the dream job.

Ideas for lucrative career options are also largely promoted by career counsellors, ‘how-to become something’ guides, and movies as well. These fantasies sometimes make a job-seeker blind and that blindness leads them to overlook the difference between their dreams and reality.

The 15 dream jobs listed here are the ones that make almost every man forget about the grim reality behind-the-scenes. Once he gets into any of these so called dream jobs, he will realize that this is not what he wanted from life and that the job is actually not for him. 

15. Adult Film Star

Have sex with beautiful women and get paid? What an awesome job it is! If you are an outsider, fantasies about working in this industry will be strong. Becoming an adult star is surely a dream job for men. No matter how many times the fear of your family comes to mind, the moment you visualize yourself sleeping with a naked beauty all the morals and ideologies disappear.

Being a male adult star is not at all easy. When you look at their profession, you simply don’t see the term ‘job’ and this is where the difference lies. You can’t convince your family, friends, co-workers and potential partners to like you. It may sound stupid, but for how long can you remain self-centered? How many years?

The erection you get almost every morning is natural, but what if several cameras and girls are looking at your ‘package’ and waiting for it to get up? Imagine one of them saying, “Guys, that sh*t ain’t gonna get up anytime soon, call me when it’s ready.” Can you imaging the pressure?

That pressure you can’t keep away from, unless you become a Trimax addict. You don’t know about Trimax? Well, it’s a drug that can be injected into the penis to make it stay up for hours. No matter how many times you explode. Being a drug addict is obviously not a good idea.

14. Actor

There are countless reasons to become an actor. Money, fame, good looking outfits, fans screaming your name, opportunity for charity work. It all looks so great and there’s no doubt that if you want to become an actor then you can. But we all have to pay the price. Similarly, if you are an actor, you are bound to pay the price of being a popular figure.

People treat you differently than others, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that the treatment is always special. An actor is bound to live an extraordinary life. Once you are on camera, it becomes really hard to get back to a normal life.

Ever wonder why even the worst actors can’t make it to normal jobs and choose to live away from people? Some actors even settle down in other countries and start working as a fitness trainer or coach. Being an actor doesn’t help you build a skill set for yourself. There are high chances that you’ll never get the roles you are fit for and you won’t be given any choice other than to leave such a competitive industry. And once you’re out of that world, what other options do you have?

13. Teacher

So many paid holidays, kids roaming around, and you are teaching your students some strong life lessons that books aren’t going to teach them. These are some of the thoughts that suddenly appear when someone dreams about becoming a teacher. But being a teacher doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll enjoy all this.

Teachers face some of the most horrible conditions such as teaching for long hours without energy. Most of the time you’ll need to forget that there’s something called time.

As a teacher you will have to be prepared for anything at anytime. No matter whether you are dealing with difficult students or weird mindsets of parents. As a teacher you have to juggle a lot of responsibilities for very little money. Despite being more talented than other staff members, if your degree is not as impressive, your chances for promotion is reduced.

12. Video Game Tester

Getting paid to play video games can be your dream, but you can’t expect all your desires to come true when you actually land in a game development company. The payment for game testers is not high, and you can even forget getting paid well in indie studios.

Even if you feel like getting there, that is, making money by holding a beer can in one hand and a game controller in another, the reality is just the opposite to this.

As a game tester, you are paid to find what’s broken in the game. You are required to play a specific part of the game multiple times to find where the bugs lie. Once you find the problems, you will be asked by the developers to document the whole scenario and here you will have to pay the price of your inability to understand the cryptic codes written by those developers. You’ll be pointing out mistakes in their codes, so obviously you won’t always be enjoying a very friendly environment around yourself.

11. CIA Officer

Do you think that turning your childhood dream job into reality is easy and can be done anytime? Well that’s true. Watching movies like the James Bond series or Zero Dark Thirty may have encouraged you to join the group of highly qualified people the United States government recruits to protect Americans. It’s a great thought and joining the CIA as an officer can really make you feel proud, but it’s not like what you see in the movies.

It’s a really secretive job so you absolutely cannot discuss your position with anyone. Not even your agency if you are in trouble or if something goes wrong. You will be left alone to your fate and one more thing, you will be living a lie throughout your life. Your family, friends and everyone in the world will believe in your lies and as long as you’re alive and serving the agency, you will have to live with that lie forever.

If you really want to know what it’s like being a CIA officer, read this AMA on Reddit. Here’s a glimpse of what he said in response to a question about his personal life.

“So for context, since you asked about family – I classify that as solely my mom and dad. And I kept it from them by telling them I was a low level sales guy – which I also told everyone else – and since that’s pretty boring, there truthfully weren’t a whole lot of other follow up questions.”

10. Firefighter

There’s a big difference between real life firefighting and what you see in the movies like The Towering Inferno and Ladder 49. To live your life as a firefighter, you must be ready to accept some of the hardest challenges, which includes staying up for 24-hour shifts, spraying water in cold nights, working with below average wages and putting your own life at risk to fight fire and save lives and assets.

Firefighters face one of the highest injury rates when compared to all the other professions. Even after sacrificing sleep, earnings, and life, firefighters don’t always get the respect they deserve. Some men actually want to become firefighter considering it a noble profession, but in reality, it is a dangerous job that actually sucks.

9. Drug Dealer

A heavily tattooed body, forcing everyone else to become a drug addict, and holding a 9mm pistol in hand is not what a real life drug dealer looks like or acts like. Being a drug dealer doesn’t necessarily mean that the person is poorly educated, teasing people, and helping random people throughout his life journey.

Being a drug dealer means you cannot act like a drug dealer because if you do, the police will catch you in seconds. So do not rely on movie scenes that depict drug dealers trying to bully people. Also, when you become a drug dealer, your chances of going to jail is high.

However, customers are the biggest concern for drug dealers, not the cops. If you think that drug dealers are more concerned about the police because cops have way more guns, high speed cars, and authority, you’re wrong. Customers tend to create more problems in the life of drug dealers. No matter how insecure you feel, you will need to interact with all kinds old and new customers because you aren’t going to sell drugs to Interpole, of course.

8. Musician

So before you become a music composer, a well-known one, you will need at least 5 to 10 years to prove yourself in the industry. Unless you are attached with someone who is actually very popular.

If you can’t make it happen, you’re bound to work with some inept dancers or singers who are good for nothing other than showing off their body. Even if you take it to the next level and get associated with popular singers, you’ll be asked to give away your right to call the music as your own. If you disagree, there are hundreds of people waiting to replace you in seconds.

Ultimately, you might want to try forming a band which will struggle for a year or two. At least each of the members will have equal expectations about making the band great some day.

7. Automobile Dealer

Owning your own showroom of brand new cars sounds appealing. Or even if you want to take a profession where you can utilize your role as a automobile enthusiast, your life will not be what you see in dreams.

As a person who knows about the inside and outside of a car, you will play the role of tech support every time anyone is in need. You will get calls from friends who are interested in buying a vehicle but are unable to decide, or you can expect calls from a cousin who doesn’t know anything about his own vehicle, but needs immediate support on the phone as he is trying to perform live repairs on the highway.

Unless you are from the Toretto family (Fast & Furious) or your girlfriend is a professional racer, your loved ones will hate your profession. And at family gatherings, you will feel so inferior when you will having nothing to talk about other than auto parts.

6. Astronaut

You will explore the vast universe, land on some untouched planets, will be featured in international journals, and will probably get insider knowledge about alien life which is apparently kept hidden from the public. But before you can reach this dream you need to qualify for numerous tests conducted by the space agencies.

You’ll need to have knowledge of the world and outer space. You must be a combination of at least one third Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and Stephen Hawking. Even if you get through all this, the life out of earth is not as amazing as it seems.

Under unfamiliar conditions, you will be forced to fend for yourself at all times. If you don’t act quickly you might be placed in a critical situation without access to medical help. However, space missions are done very carefully, but at any moment, a single human mistake or technical fault can put you in danger and there will be no one to hear you screaming.

5. Ethical Hacker

You may have seen hackers wearing cool t-shirts using skateboards and hacking multi-level security systems by replacing some chords and microchips. Well, don’t go by what is shown to you in the movies.

Hacking and ethics can go hand in hand, but not too far. Of course, the nature of the job is really weird because you have to hack things, but in ethical ways. The purpose of ethical hackers is to implement some penetration techniques to identify potential threats in computer or network systems.

However, one of the most controversial jobs doesn’t give you a promising future because there are a lot of things you can’t change. No matter whether your roommates start calling you the best hacker in the world. As a programmer, you are bound to live by the rule that no program is perfect and almost every piece of code is bad in someone else’s eyes.

4. Event Planner

You’ve made a big hit if you are planning an event for a big budget movie promotion or for some popular performers. But turning this dream job into reality is not very easy because you have to first work for small companies, and there is also the chance that you’ll never be able to hit it big in your industry.

But if you make it, you will be required to handle the pressure that requires you to multitask even if you have a lot of work in hand. It’s hard, and if something goes wrong, you will be responsible for the loss and/or damage caused to anyone’s assets, life, and everything in between. You will need to potentially manage a lot of frustrated or stressed out clients. It is exciting and at the same time it is really very terrifying.

3. Photographer/Cinematographer

The dreams of working for Discovery, National Geographic or some film production house comes to almost every man. Be it wildlife photography or fashion calendar photo shoots, you are not alone if you dream about becoming a photographer or a cinematographer.

The hard truth about the industry is that it is highly saturated. Many will argue that no industry will ever become saturated as long as talented people are alive. The thoughts are amazing, but let us see the reality on ground.

These days everyone with a DSLR and a little knowledge of Adobe Photoshop calls himself a professional photographer. Even if you forget the competition, what matters the most is how unique your photographs are.

If you look at galleries boasting the ‘world’s most amazing photographs’ you will find that they are just a result of perfect timing. And if you want to establish yourself in any particular niche, you will have to wait for those unpredictable moments you have no control over.

2. Pilot

Flying in the sky looks awesome when you’re out of the club. But in reality, it can be the worst job. As a pilot, you do two things that include take-off and landing. Other than that, you have to make sure to keep your passengers safe throughout the journey. Sit and get bored because you can’t leave your seat unless nature calls.

Sitting in the cockpit watching clouds doesn’t always give you pleasure when it becomes a routine job for you. Another thing is the safety. No matter how secure aviation has become, the life of a pilot is always at risk. No matter how many safety measures you take, you have to rely on nature and the voice support from ATC when you are flying thousands of feet up.

1. News Anchor

Sitting in front of several cameras, making all your family and friends watch you everyday on TV sounds exceptional. Not everyone has the luxury to appear on TV, but the road to reach that chair isn’t easy. And even if you successfully make it to a reputable channel, the pressure is something you would never want to experience.

You are looking at the camera and everyone else out there is looking at you waiting for what comes out next. You are managing to read the content appearing on a teleprompter and suddenly your editor asks you to take a break.

No matter whether you were planning to highlight some point or wanted to note down something to form a new question for your debate, you have to make sure to keep a balance between what you read, think, speak and what is coming through to your ears from the team working behind the scenes.

You’re bound to manage all this without bringing any expressions on your face because the information you are sharing with people may not require you to smile or change the pitch of your voice.