Slashdot Mirror
What Should I Do With My Life?
Bamafan77 writes "FastCompany's website has an interesting article about what it means to be successful that I think builds nicely upon a recent Slashdot discussion. That Slashdot thread was about a study that wanted to find out if there is a link between college rejection and success. This new article asks a more basic question that many people struggle with: what does it mean to be successful and how do I achieve it? This article is an excerpt from a new book by Po Bronson which details the personal lives of several people, many of whom are very talented and superficially successful, who switched gears to try to find that 'thing' they are impassioned about. One interesting excerpt that might particularly hit home to the Slashdot community is Bronson's tidbit about a Rockwell manager who left his job because, though it was mentally challenging, lacked a deeper level of gratification. What is this man doing now? He's a cop in East LA."
Having read the article in Fast Company and thumbed through the book, itself, at Borders (no thanks to their kiosk- can't someone teach that thing about endcaps and displays?), I would point out that Bronson seems to have sought folks to interview who had decided to forego the zeroes. That, in itself, isn't novel; it's trite. Indeed, platitudes like "do something you love" were counterproductive for some of the subjects, who obsessed over finding the "right" career, one that perfectly balanced the things they thought made them happy, only to find that the reality was pretty far from the quadrant graph. The meat of the book, though, was in their stories of how they ultimately figured it out, the vagueness of the hunches they followed, etc., and the feedback that reinforced their early decisions.
"[Gallup's] hundreds of studies proved time after time that talent makes a huge impact on profitable growth across every major type of occupation and industry...Superior performers...follow their instincts and thereby identify and develop their specialties. [Given the current modi operandi of education and corporate training] almost always they do this on their own."
Other key research findings are:
- Creativity is a better predictor of achievement than intelligence (source: Torrance)
- Creativity takes shape at the intersection of creativity skills, domain knowledge and intrinsic motivation (source: Amabile)
So, while the article's research is anecdotal, the core thesis is 100% correct:Bullshit. A little creative problem is needed. All these solutions have been provided by my brother, sister, and friends - all have kids.
> Get tipsy with friends.
Baby sitter
Pawn the child(ren) off on a friend who isn't going to a party
Go out with friends on a night your kids are at a sleep over
With your partner trade off nights of going out
After your kids have gone to bed, invite your friends over to drink a little wine and talk
> Have lazy Sunday morning sex.
Have it when you kids are at a sleep over
Lock your bedroom door
Wake up before your kids
> Enjoy your coffee.
Wake up before your kids (that's what my parents did)
Sit and enjoy your coffee while your kids are having breakfast, watching morning cartoons, or (heaven forbid) outside being loud
> Realize you don't have to be rich.
Plenty of parents are rich or even wealthy and are enjoying life. You don't have to clothe your kids in whatever's hip.
It's all about taking your pleasure where you can get it.
You want a real hero? Grab a copy of The Fountainhead and read about Howard Roark.
I highly recommend Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus" for a 3rd approach. He states that with both theism and atheism there is a point at which you make a leap and state something. "There is a god" or "There is no god" and from that assumption there falls a series of logical conclusions. His approach is not to make that leap. It's a stance akin to zen buddhism. Essentially, I don't know, and have no means of knowing. This is where the absurd portion comes in. He compares existence as being like a man wielding a knife running in to a room full of men with machine guns. We are so obviously ill equiped to understand much of anything. So why not focus on the things that we can know. And that is (according to Camus) only what you believe (Sartre disagreed fairly strongly, another good read and essentially Camus busting on Sartre is The Rebel).