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."
...may be a bad thing. But, when you make your work and your play the same thing, then everyday is a joy. (First Reply tee hee)
"Dream to be happy. That is the best dream."
The media-fed society has a pernicious way of linking material success with success in general, no matter what price was paid for the material success. As individuals get free of social pressures to look good (defined as, nice car, clothes, and house -- not defined as "smiles a lot, and is at peace") they can really become themselves, not a shell wrapped around nothing.
I worked 2 years as a network admin for a law firm. Payed great, but the job just burned me out. It wasn't worth it. Sure after I left the place I found myself in some financial difficulty, but it was better than hating was I was doing.
I think my current CS professor said it best:
To me - Success can't be measured by numbers or scores, or anything tangible. It comes down to your heart and head. That is what really matters.
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I think I would like convert one of my "garage" projects into a business. Success is not, IMHO, a function of wealth, but a funciton of independence (which may or may not be wealth dependent depending on who you ask).
:), that is just icing on the cake.
The important thing to realize that most people judge success as a function of job satisfaction which I think is tough, if not impossible to achieve. Remember, the only thing you can control is yourself, and well a job, that is hard to control. That is why you are paid to do it.
I will never be a CEO, COO, and good help me if I make it to middle management. I am trencher, and will always enjoy being in the muck, but I would like to have a bit of voice when it comes to the decisions (which is probably related to job satisfaction). I guess, success as I define it, can be best described by how I spend my free time. The part I can control. A couple of toys and a paycheck that keeps me happy, healthy and wise
...guess what, I am going to enjoy it. We only have one chance [unless people can prove otherwise], and therefore I am going to adlib it. I am going to work hard enough to pay for the things I would like to do, but not spend my life working. I am not going to regret things I havent done. I honestly live my life on a day-by-day, week-by-week basis enjoying the things I do and look forward to things that I will hopefully be doing tomorrow or next week. I dont want money and to be hugely rich [granted it is nice - but I am not going to dedicate my life to obtaining it only to die with it all in the bank]. What am I going to do? Well, I want to learn about model helicopters, I want to race my radio controlled car. I want to go back to Australia and spend more time there. I want to write a perl compatible regular expression library even though PCRE already exists so I can learn how Non-deterministic finite automaton work on the implementation side of things. Doing things like this are far more important [in my eyes] than the pursuit of being rich and famous [which is what most people class as being successfull].
I am enjoying my life at the minute learning through my Ph.D. and hacking on my opensource projects. All I can say, is that I consider success not in monetry terms but in what I have learned for myself and the happiness that comes from it. Some people would say that I am being silly with all this and I should join the Real World. This is my Real World.
I suppose my final word is this, do what you want because it makes you happy, not because you feel you have to. Ultimatly the only person that can judge whether you have been successfull is yourself.
chris at darkrock dot co dot uk
http colon slash slash www dot darkrock dot co dot uk
Mr. Blume: What's the secret, Max?
Max Fischer: The secret?
Mr. Blume: Yeah, you seem to have it pretty figured out.
Max Fischer: The secret, I don't know... I guess you've just gotta find something you love to do and then... do it for the rest of your life. For me, it's going to Rushmore.
May be you are right. But thats such a minimalistic attitude. It might give sense of completeness for a while but not in the long run. Then how and when do you say that you are successful. I'd say successful is a very relative term. Why? Becoz as human beings we measure our success based on something. Say your neighbour or your brother or the guy who got a nobel prize.
To be successful, I'd say just the opposite - 'never settle'. If you accept life as it comes, in due process, you will be eliminated as you violate the basic principle of evolution. You have to innovate and improve every second of your life. Now thats easier said than done. But I'd say this style of life would be much satisfying than sitting on a lazy-boy, gulping down beer and cheering for some football team.
The question of what one wants to do is important. I asked it over seven years ago - and am now in a satisfying IT career.
I love where I work. I love what I do. I love my company and my boss is perhaps the best I've ever had.
But I know I'm fortunate.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
I can see some of your irony or wit or whatever, but have you ever considered what it takes to start a company?
I did, I have my own company, I'm my own CEO, my own middle management, my own footman. I have had to make to decision to fire about 10 diferent persons in my life (I'm 22 right now) and it wasn't easy, or fun. It felt bad, but it was necesary. I work all day consulting on networking and general computer maintance, and I code at night. I have some big clients (at least for the country I live in) including a K12 School that has the largest IT infrastructure in the country (400+ computers). Am I making a shitload of money?? Absolutly not. But I'm making a bit less as I would if I had been employed in an avarege job. However, I know that I can continue to climb as I become more experienced, and I know that one of my projects can give me a big break, but if not, I can continue to survive. Is it hard?? Yes, probably harder than a normal job, but I think it would be worth it in the long run.
Don't underestimate the position of a CEO, if you haven't had a chance to walk in thier shoes. Some are like the ones you describe, but they are few and far apart.
please excuse my apathy
Happiness?
Yeah, I was happy with my self, my position in life, my wages, my job, and the relationship I was in.
Twas the scariest 5 minutes of my life.
To quote something I agree with about life and humans in general:
"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery."
If it makes you happy or gives you satisfaction in some way, it is probably wrong, or dangerous, or illegal...Or it soon will be.You keep going until you die..."Me".
I have a satisfying, challenging, and fulfilling job. But that's not what I turn to when I'm asked what my life is worth.
Instead I talk about my wife. I talk about my relationship with my parents and my brother and my in-laws. I talk about my friends, my music, my writing, and the software I write on the side. I talk about the organizations to which I donate my time and labor.
Equating sucess with professional achievement and money blinds us to the very thing that makes life worthwhile: other people. Our whole experience of life revolves around the quality of our relationships. That's not to say work isn't important--it is an important tool to having everything else in your life work. But I refuse to have it be ALL I do, or even the main barometer of my "success".
You must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question. This question is one that only a very old man asks. My benefactor told me about it once when I was young, and my blood was too vigorous for me to understand it. Now I do understand it. I will tell you what it is: Does this path have heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere. My benefactor's question has meaning now. Does this path have heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.
I have seen tons of smart-ass comments here about the article but I think it applies, especially here. Like most of my coworkers, I did IT because I wanted to make a buck. Fortunatly I am pretty good at it, but it still makes my eyeballs want to fall out. I come back after vacation and say to myself 'WTF, I can't believe that I sit here all day' One thing the author failed to mention is that jobs that are remotly interesting pay substantailly less, the reality of it is that I would not have a house or a car for my family if I didn't do this kind of work.
I abandonded a career in chemistry (which I loved) because I simply could not survive on a chemist's salary.
love is just extroverted narcissism
What should you do with your life?
.
Go barefoot.
Get tipsy with friends.
Have lazy Sunday morning sex.
Enjoy your coffee.
Endulge yourself every once in awhile.
Realize you don't have to be rich.
Read Barbara Holland's Endangered Pleasures
Enjoy it. That's what you should do with your life.
Obviously, you don't live in the U.S., or you'd have a better appreciation for the original poster's humor. Being CEO of a large company here isn't about hard work and ethics, it's about bleeding the company dry, running it into the ground, taking your ill-gotten money and building a $15 million mansion in Florida, then declaring bankruptcy since they can't take your house under Florida law.
You might have trouble finding a vocation that "fits your true character," even if you ever find such a thing as a "true character." Try to spend most of your short life doing what appeals to you (preferably getting paid for it), sharing that time with someone who has the uncanny ability to make seconds seem like eternity.
This is easier said than done, of course. In more concrete terms, find someone to love, love the hell out of them, and make enough to neither live on the street nor sacrifice your "spirit" in the process.
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
Yes,
It's always some rich dude ranting how money can't buy happiness. Try living without it and see how far you get. I don't see a whole lot of poor people ranting about "I'm so happy because I'm poor."
At University I wanted to be a computer programmer, drive a Jaguar and play Roland keyboards. All very material. I've achieved all that. There never really was an emotional side to the plan. But...
There's a lot more to life than work. I can speak from recent experience here, as I'm about to become a husband and also have a baby daughter. Work is just how I support the remainder of my life - trust me, nothing in work can compare to the satisfaction to be gained from raising your own kid, or from finding the right person. Nothing. Current culture glamourises the working world because it has to - it needs you to make money in order to sell you things. Try to look beyond that a little bit.
A) Make Money
B) Have Fun
C) Stay within the law
Choose only 2
No matter how much fun work can be, there is a reason it is still called Work and not Recess!
if he were happy.
He thought about it for a few mintues and then said, " I don't know. I've been so busy doing what I want that I've never even considered the question."
Now *that* is success.
And don't let anybody tell you otherwise.
What amazes me is how long it takes some people to figure that out, like the author of this article, for instance.
KFG
Y'know, I appreciate all the innocent and simple definitions of success, but many of them gloss over a financial fly in the ointment: it's horribly difficult to have fun when you are flat broke, or (more commonly) completely in debt with no way to pay it off.
Some of us are lucky: we have jobs about which we are passionate, spouses we love unconditionally, houses tucked in at the base of mountains in locations where the quality of life is excellent (hunting, fishing, camping, in a city of 8500 people). But the truth is, my life would suck if I had to perform actual physical labor.
Yes, I could make more money working somewhere else, as a DBA or a programmer or a systems engineer or a middle manager of other geeks. I am not underpaid, though I haven't purchased a new motherboard in 3 years. But if geekdom didn't pay so well, I would not be nearly as happy as I am now.
So it isn't the money, entirely, and it isn't that I love my work, entirely. It's that I receive a decent paycheck for something I enjoy, and I've found the people I want to live among, and work with.
But if it weren't for the pay, I'd probably be doing something that paid more but I still love, like finish carpentry.
I think that's the key: a person can be "successful" at whatever they decide to pursue, as long as their goals are modest, their abilities competent, and their capacity for happiness unbounded.
But it's hard to be happy when you get payed $6/hr to peddle inferior products to disrespectful customers for a boss who sees you as a replacable commodity.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Don't be too quick to judge. First off, freelance writer Po Bronson != Fast Company magazine. The piece is just an excerpt from an upcoming book.
Throughout the late 90s he covered the Silicon Valley ups and downs as an independent writer. If you read his book The Nudist on the Late Shift, you'll see he tells stories of both success AND failure. If you read The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest, you'll see he writes about people that favor intellectual ability over salary and stock options. (Good book, crap DVD.)
Before becoming a writer, he was chasing the Wall Street dream. He's walked away from the money on many occasions.
He's a good writer trying to convey the introspection he sees in his generation. Don't be so quick to toss him in the CNBC mix.
I have been using computers since I was 3 and a half years old. Writing code since I was 5. It's still a passion of mine, however I also failed out of college, and began working my a$$ off for companies. I had a nice paycheck, and was the highest tech of techs where I was, and thought on the way there that it was what I always wanted; yet when I got there, I still had the same things missing in my heart.
Then I was laid off for a very long time, and lost some of the nice things I had purchased, and started to realize that everything I had put so much stock into was superficial at best. What I came to realize is that at the end, if I kept on my current track, I would have nothing to show for my life except debt and equity in material posession. I would have affected no one's course of life, done nothing to make the world better save bitching about the problems in it.
I am currently working as a security contractor for a very large IT outsourcing company (you all know it, but I won't discuss it here) - it's a paycheck that is letting me pay back the debt I incurred, which is important to me - I could have very easily filed bankruptcy and walked away, but I made personal commitments and gave my word to repay borrowed money, and I will do that. However there is not a day that goes by where I don't think about the ultimate waste of time and life that this place is. I am watching my days disappear before me while I push firewall rules, that 5 years from now will mean nothing to anyone except the CEO who got his bonus.
My passions are things like helping people, motorcycles, art, and technology - I still love computers and they are an integral part of my life. However I need to find a way to incorporate these things into my life so that I feel fulfilled at the end of the day, so that I can touch other peoples' lives in some way. I feel a great swell of pity for those that spend what little time they have here pining away for some corporation, because they lack the courage to follow their dreams.
Coming to the brink of financial ruin, losing a lot of things, and having the biggest reality check of my life was the best thing that has ever happened to me. My life is better from it, and my eyes are more open than they have ever been. Some of you without jobs are reading this thinking I'm insane, but it's ONLY when you are face to face with losing everything that you realize what you truly have, and what is really important in life. It's one of the greatest life experiences I think we as humans can have.
"There is a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path"...
The older I get (I'm 35), the more I realize that the only really important things in my life are the people in it. I'm lucky, though. I like my job and I'm paid well and treated well, but my job doesn't define my life. The people in my life are the most important thing in my life. My family and friends matter the most to me, but my employees, cow-orkers and the people I regularly buy things from also matter to me.
As someone wiser than me once pointed out, the question you should be asking yourself is: What do you want people to say about you when you're gone?
I have a theory that if you can do what you dreamed of doing when you were 14 or 15, you'll have a fulfilling career. By then your personality had pretty well gelled, but other ... um ... distractions hadn't yet comepletely clouded your vision. You may take some detours along the way, and that's okay. Just be careful not to take on too many financial obligations too soon. You'll end up chasing money instead of your dream, and you may never get back on track.
So more important than the advice to ditch your life for a new one, I would suggest finding ways to deal with bad situations to make them better.
I think it all comes down to defining ones values. Conflict comes from either not knowing ones values or doing things that go against ones values. The answer, I think, is to strongly define ones values and stick with them, despite the consequences. Don't quit banking because you're asked to do immoral things, don't do those things and work to change it. Don't quit IT because your tired of being a Microsoft slave in the certification rut, liberate yourself by learning a new skill (like Linux) or solving problems in new ways. You don't need to farm fish or join a monastery to find satisfaction and happiness, that's just one way. Work from within to simply hold onto your values and the job will transform. If you don't know your values or need to redefine, well, that's your next step.
Yes, it's simplistic advice, but it accepts the fact of suffering in life and that sometimes bailing is not always an option. I think we bail on too many things in this culture: jobs, relationships, school, marriages, religion, etc. Life is difficult for most people, especially when there's uncertainty and doubt. Get your head straight, define your values, follow them, and let the chips fall where they may. Change attitude, not latitude, to paraphrase a popular beer commercial.
My wife and I both had the same epiphany. I was making plenty of money, but when I got laid off, we both realized what my ever-increasing income had really gotten us: a lot of debt. We had fallen into the same stupid pit so many other people fall into.
;)
...
Instead of hunting for a job that paid just as much, I took one that paid half as much -- teaching high school. You may expect me to say that I found it really rewarding or something in spite of the pay. Well... no. I don't like teaching. But, we ditched the high-priced suburbian house and the two car payments for a much simpler lifestyle, and now I'm back into programming, but not for the same money I was raking in before. We're both going back to school and playing it by ear for now, but we'll end up doing something "meaningful" and not worrying about much more than food and rent. And my broadband connection. I'm not going back to dial-up, even if I have to lay the fiber connection myself.
I'm very lucky that my wife and I both came to the same conclusions. I'm sorry yours didn't, but I'm glad to hear you found someone who does now. (I'm also glad I'm not a dateless wonder... My wife is taller than me, brown hair, chocolate eyes, long legs, and a size 6... those hip-hugger jeans look reeeeeally nice on her *g*.)
>> On second thought, I'm starting to think this whole 'growing up" business is vastly overrated
I certainly don't plan on growing up. Older? Sure. Wiser? Most certainly. More experienced? Without a doubt. But "grown up"? Never.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
Travel, live in other countries, get to appreciate other people's point of view, strengths, learn from their weaknesses. For me personally there is no better thing than learning about other people. Your house can burn down, your money can be taken away (you might do something stupid like investing into Enron with it), but your memories and your experience will always stay. And when I say experience I don't mean job related experience but experience in life.
Just my $.02
I'd like a job where I can sleep in as late as I want. Then I can wake up and eat butter and milkshakes for a few hours. Then I go back to bed for as long as I want. Then I wake up and I get to have sex with Victoria Secret models until I grow bored. Then I play golf or go bowling.
Occasionally I read, but then back to the sleeping.
And I would be paid money so big that rap songs would be written about me from an envious vein.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Once I make my millions, I'm going to retire to a life of charity work.
My current plan is to start up "Handjobs for the Homeless." I will hire busty blondes to work in plush living quarters where homeless men can come in and get handjobs for free. And some booze if they want it. Then back into the harsh world that bred them once they are done.
You might ask what I will do for the homeless women.
And the answer is... I don't know. Them bitches is ugly.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
I've been doing that forever, from doing a startup and exhibiting at my first COMDEX in 1985, through most of a decade working on the Alta Ski Patrol, doing emergency medicine, avalanche control and rescue dog training, to what I'm doing now, trying to bring my vision of exercising in God's most beautiful places while right in your living room, and doing it in such way that it will have an effect on what is becoming the epidemic of our time: obesity. See more about it at http://www.exerscape.com
And hopefully making enough money to be warm, fed, and comfortable in my old age, and show my children the world in the future.
The one continuing theme has been following my passions, from computers through the outdoors, from bike racing through digital media, from playing with explosives to create avalanches to my current obsession, the Palestinian conflict and its ongoing effect on the world's view of the US. When a you are consistently on the losing end of UN resolutions 160-4, something is wrong with your position, but the Bushies just don't seem to get it....
Anyway, follow your passions, follow the path of your curiosity, and go through the doors that naturally open when you do so. The tough times seem easier, the good times seem sublimley happy, inner satisfaction is assured, and you will almost assuredly see enough financial success to survive, if not prosper.
Just my 2 cents : )
All the comments I've read are making me think of a song by a French singer, Francis Cabrel, called "Photos de Voyages". I'll translate a bit of it, to the best of my ability:
Like a child of the islands,
wearing nothing on his skin.
He quietly watches the tourst boats cross.
You get off the boat and walk up to him,
money in your pocket, and take his picture.
At the end of your trip, sitting
in your living room, you see his
face again staring up at you from
the bottom of a shoe box.
You have your money.
He has the sun.
He has all his time.
You have your camera.
You take back your pictures, your travel photos. You think you're as happy as he is.
You have your business lunches
and your nights spent at work.
He's sitting outside, hair down
to his waist, repairing a net
to catch fish at the coral reef.
In the middle of your city,
you're all bundled up.
Sometimes the temperature drops
to 15 degrees below 0.
Sitting in his little cabin in
the hot sun, he's drinking
coconut milk.
============
Sorry for the crappy translation, but that's the general idea. The person with the money, going on vacation, taking the pictures is really just trying to convince themselves that they're happy with all their possessions, even though they spend most of their time working to maintain them. The guy living on an island in the warm sun, drinking milk and fishing off the reef has no money, but all the time in the world.
While I don't want to really be at either extreme, I like the message the song delivers: don't get so caught up in working for stuff that you don't have time to enjoy life.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
I've never understood theists who claim that their god and their religion (in most cases, Christianity) is the meaning of life and how it makes life more worth living. It seems to me that the exact opposite is true. Christianity teaches people that they are essentially horrible and that existence on Earth is something that they have to "go through" before their "real life" with God in Heaven starts. Almost makes our Earth-bound existence sounds like sort of a chore, doesn't it?
To atheists, on the other hand, what you have is what you get. You are not going to get an eternity in Heaven as part of some second existence. When you die, that's it. So it's up to you to make the most of each and every minute of each and every day, because you're not getting anything else, baby. Despite all of its problems, I tend to think that the world is still a very beautiful place, and one certainly does not need angels, devils, and Jesii to enjoy it and have meaningful experiences in it.
At least you're not bitter or anything... over zealous cock sucker...
OK lets talk about propserity. When Ronald Reagen passed his tax cuts in the early and mid 1980s, all expert economists basically said "this will take roughly a decade to really take hold." Well, look when the market and economy started to really shoot up. It was in 1994 or so JUST LIKE THE EXPERTS SAID. When Bill Clinton raised taxes on working family's in 1994 the experts said this would destroy the economy in 7 years. Well, guess what. The economy is in the tank JUST LIKE THE EPXERTS SAID.
Now President George W. Bush has follow'ed Reagen's lead and cut taxes but the experts again say to expect to wait ten more years for it to really take hold. So we will have to wait until at least 2011 for another economic powerhouse like we had in the mid 1990s and its all Clintons fault. If he had left well enough alone we would still be in the biggest economic increase in history, 9/11 would have been a blip on the radar in terms of hurting the economy.
And Bill Clinton kept the "peace" at the expense of thousands of people who died last September too, or had you already forgotten about that.
is cause they don't have the luxury - like most of the people he interviews - of taking the time to find out. They have to keep working at their shit job because they have to EAT or get food so their kids can EAT.
... it only makes sens to people who already have enough money to eat and live.
This discussion is so middle class
He didn't say anything about finding God being a requirement for happiness. He said that he found happiness in God, and recommended a selection for others to read. No one is forcing anything on you - but sharing ideas and insights is how we learn. Even atheists need to explore why they don't believe in God, and reading things that convinced others may offer them insights to confirm why they still believe there is no God. Have an open mind, and be willing to listen to the experiences of others without thinking they are foisting them on you.