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."
About 7-8 years ago, I skipped getting my 4 year degree for a 2 year degree and certs. I was doing well throughout the web boom, and continued to do so up until 9-11. After that it seemed that every job posting that was out there you needed 4 year degree, 5 yrs exp, and every cert known to mankind. The sysadmin jobs I have been doing for the past 10 years, now all of a sudden its like I'm not qualified to do my own job! I recommend getting all the college you can!
Hey, when you are done slashdotting, come check out Pajonet.com!
Quickly becoming the #1 Website in the World!
I know that there are a lot of flippant comments so far, but I'd just like to say that in my mid-thirties, I chucked everything and came to Thailand with US$1000 and two suitcases. I have successfully built a future here, and ther are many side benefits for me, as well (see my sig). Just the ability to read manuals in English, understand them without assistance, and explain them to Thais makes me profitable.
I make, in US$, somewhere from 500 - 1800, depending on how hard I work, but that amount is more than enough to support me and build a nest-egg for the future.
Did I mention the girls?
Put identity in the browser.
In other words, a writer and a magazine who made themselves by proclaiming that the only worthwhile use of your life is starting a dot-com, going public and keeping your stock price elevated until the lockup period ends and you can bail out are now embracing "money won't make you happy".
Truth is, the excerpt was interesting and occasionally thought-provoking, and the book might well be worth reading. But the smarminess level here really rubs me the wrong way.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I've been working in tech since I dropped out of college about 8 years ago with terrible grades. Computers were something I'd been raised around and had a knack for, and I could make a decent amount of money from them. That was enough for a while. Not anymore, tho.
For several years, it's bothered me that I don't really do anything to help anyone. Well, I do help them make money faster, but that's about it. I can't stand watching all the suffering in the world and thinking like I'm wasting my time building manufacturing systems so that some company can make widgets more efficiently. Instead, I've gone back to college. One semester down with a 3.7 so far, and I've got about 6 or 7 more to go til I've got my neuroscience degree, then on to med school, hopefully.
I understand that some of y'all are stuck in jobs you don't like because of circumstances beyond your control. And I'm sure that a bunch of you are doing things in programming and engineering that will one day improve the quality of life for those around ou. For the rest of you that aren't, take a long hard look in the mirror and see if you're happy helping someone else make money and playing with toys. I think, or at least I hope, that some of you might be a bit uncomfortable with that idea. At the end of your life, do you want your big accomplishment to be "I got my company ISO 9001 certified" or even "I raised my kid to work as a drone in the tech sector?"
"This is your world. These are your people. You can live for yourself today, or help build tomorrow for everyone."
My grandmother used to ask me if I loved my work and if it was fun. I'd always say I liked it, but it wasn't what I'd call "fun." Eventually I started saying "Work that's fun, that's a hobby. Work you wouldn't do if you weren't paid for it, that's a job."
Anyway, I guess my advice would be to not automatically assume that what you do for eight hours a day or whatever is necessarily who you are. I know PhDs that cheerfully drive cabs for a living: they never confused the job with their life. So find something that can fund what you really find worthwhile.....has always been my motto. However, after the dotcom debacle, I now find myself clinging to a good paying job (as a senior software engineer), which I hate and dread to go to on a daily basis. My boss is a patronizing, belittling, overbearing __unfavorable_definition_of_your_choice_ who loves to torment my entire group on a daily basis.
;-)
Now, my other guiding principle I was always following was: When I was a little boy, and someone would have shown me a video of my life today, what would I have said?
I must be honest here: although I love software development and my pursuit of excellence as an engineer, I must concede that the little boy I once was would probably have been apalled at his future life (especially during 2001/2002) - and we are not talking about a childhood urge of wanting to be an astronaut here.
I grew up as a very simple kid in Austria until I was 11 and sometimes I linger back to those days. Compared to the morass I am living in (Los Angeles), it remember life as being a lot simpler (although I also remember my father having a hard time finding a job
I will turn 37 in a week and I realize that, as a middle-aged software developer, my choices for a career change are limited. However, I have been working on a mechanical invention of mine for the last two years during weekends. This taught me a lot, and although I realize that the chance of realizing this invention is infinitesmal, it has given me the energy to make it through the last few years. I would jump at the chance to pursue it on a full time basis, even if it ment a major cut in my salary. Maybe I am able to find an investor, and maybe it's just a pipe dream. But I firmly believe in following my dreams and satisfying my imagination, otherwise I can only look ahead of a life behind a monitor working for people I hate and doing things I don't care about.
Just my two cents, I don't have the perfect answer either, but I am sure that a lot of us have sold our souls to this industry, and maybe it's time to fight back and reclaim some of it - recession or no recession.
This article kinda hit home with me. I've been working with computers since I was 4 years old. My brother-in-law was getting his CS degree from UC Davis when I was young, and I was facinated with his computers. Computers have always been a fairly natural part of my life, they've always been around. I'm about 99% self educated with computers. I've always been curious of how everything works. I've learned several programming languages and have lots of IT experience. Suffice it to say, I didn't need to go to college to get a well paying job. I'm currently a software engineer and have been working in the field for the last 5 years. I like programming and such, but I really prefer working on projects I find interesting, and not what my boss wants me to do. I guess you could say that computers are more fun for me as a hobby than as a career. A while ago I decided I wanted to make more of my life. Working in the computer field was not my ideal. So I started taking classes at night and working during the day. I'm studing something that has been a dream of mine since childhood, which also happens to be one of the least computer related subjects I can think of, Animal Science with Veterinary emphasis. Yes, my goal is to become a vet. I'm definately not doing it for the money, in fact, if all goes according to plan, I'll be making a lot less after 8 years of school than I currently make. I'm doing because it's what I want to do with my life. I find that people who like what they do for a living tend to generally be much happier people, and that's all I really want out of life, to be happy.
I enjoyed the companionship and humor of other software developers and now enjoy the companionship and humor of oil patch workers. The work can be dirty, long, hard and physical. Cracking the "greenie" label and being accepted by the rough and tumble crowd is satisfying. Its not for everyone, I don't know where I'll go next but I am not afraid to try. And besides I hear some great new jokes and sayings like "...that lease is so far fucking north they have to truck in sunshine!"
One can read the "Northwest Passage" and be amazed at early artic explorers. The drive they had is nothing new, its been around for centuries. We are doing that today in different ways as this articles points out. They explored new lands which is essentially what we are doing today only the landscapes have changed.
True story. Try instead the sort of CEO who arrives into a company he doesn't care about, who's products are incomprehensible to him, who got the CEO position because his college buddy is a VC. This CEO then proceeds to stab the company founder in the back, and (as far as we can tell) deliberately run the company into the ground, finally declaring the entirity of development redundant and dismissing them from the company as such, keeping jobs only for the other college buddies he brought into the company at 5 times the highest developers salary. Company still (just about) exists and will continue to do so until the cash reserve is dried up from paying the parasites salaries. Living on my savings now, looking for work. CEO who was in the company less than 1 year, and his cronies are living off the company capital that the fired developers and backstabbed previous management built up for the previous 8 years in order to extend our market area into the states.
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
Ben Hunnicut at the University of Iowa has had the lifelong question
:)
sorry for the teaser... preview/submit error
Ben Hunnicut is author of Work Without End and is a history prof at UofI. Had the opportunity to chat with him a bit. He has devoted a serious part of his life to wondering about the worth of leisure time in American society. Work Without End is a look at the "shorter-hours" movement in this country from the late nineteenth century up to 1940 or so. We kind of take the 8-hour/5-day work week for granted these days, but it wasn't always so. The shorter-hours movement, both from within labor and without, got the work day from 12-hour to 10-hour, and finally 8-hour, and then got the week shortened to 5-day. The Kellogs factory workers even went down to 6-hour.
And then after WWII, the movement just kinda stopped. No one is questioning the 40-hour work-week, no one is calling for more leisure. Why?
What is leisure time good for? Improving oneself, contemplating the larger questions of Life, Love, and Happiness (insert God if you wish), studying the democratic process in order to be a better citizen, kernel hacking... when you get right down to it, I don't want to do anything that someone has to pay me to get me to do.
Ben points to a lot of utopians, socialists, Progressives, and authors that always figured that increasing industrialization would eventually mean that machines did most of the labor, and humans would be left with pure Leisure. Of course we are in a very good position to rule on what utter bullshit that turned out to be. As long as corporations own the machines, the People do not, hence the profit on the labor of the machines goes to the owners. Instead we find ourselves forced now to keep up with the pace of the Machine.
Don't get me wrong, wouldn't trade it for The Way We Was, but I would fix it. We should always be using Technology to study and answer the really big questions that are fundamentally human. Like communication, love, politics, work, play, war, and so forth. Questions that people have always had to answer, but haven't always had the tech that we do with which to answer them.
For what it's worth, I consider that to be my life's Work. Applying modern technology to answering the fundamental human questions. My dream is to be able to make the quality of life on this planet tied to the progress of technology, so that increasing technological progress brings a corresponding increase in the quality of life. I think this is slightly different than the way it has been for awhile, in that increasing technological progress has brought better ways with which to kill each other, while our political and cultural systems are largely stagnant and always looking backward to the glory days behind us...
Ok I'm monopolizing the discussion, someone take over. ; )
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
I strongly disagree that they are few and far apart. I think situations where you have an executive level manager that has even a modicum of concern for anything outside of their own outrageously bloated salaries and their golden parachutes are few and far apart actually.
You can look at the horrible state of the telecomm industry as proof of this. Company values plummet and debt soars even as executive management rakes in the bucks irrespective if their abysmal job as leaders and decision makers.
TYLER
I see in fight club the strongest and
smartest men who have ever lived --
an entire generation pumping gas and
waiting tables; or they're slaves
with white collars.
Advertisements have them chasing cars
and clothes, working jobs they hate
so they can buy shit they don't need.
We are the middle children of
history, with no purpose or place.
We have no great war, or great
depression. The great war is a
spiritual war. The great depression
is our lives. We were raised by
television to believe that we'd be
millionaires and movie gods and rock
stars -- but we won't. And we're
learning that fact. And we're very,
very pissed-off.
There are three aspects to every task.
1) How much do you like doing this task?
2) How good are you at this task compared to others.
3) What do you receive in exchange for doing this task?
There are lots of minor rule definitions I have added to this, (like rule 2 is in comparison to everyone else, e.g.: being an ok brain surgen is better than being great at sweeping floors)
As soon as I discovered this it seemed obvious which of the tasks I undertake should get more time. For example I play much less computer games and watch much less mindless t.v. I also volunteer more, I coach H.S. sports and recently signed up as a volunteer fireman.
Come up with your own method of scoring each point. Please let me know if you want to suggest another. btw: how long the task takes and how much it costs you are take care of in 3. Thus I no longer ski as much. Its just too expensive and too far from where I live.
Mark
I used to agree before my wife left me. Which she did in part because I wasn't bringing in enough money and she didn't have the Career she wanted. Wives (and by default, children) are only good for 4-8 years. Nowadays jobs are too, but no workplace blackmailed me for alimony
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_bloc
The solution, I've found, is not to make more, but to spend less -- a lot less. If you're working in IT like many slashdotters, you can probably live quite comfortably and support a family on half of what you earn. After all, there are people out there who earn half as much as you do, who are nevertheless able to make ends meet and lead happy lives.
Yes, you'll have to get used to some pretty big lifestyle changes, but consider: You will never again have to worry about whether or not you have enough money in the checking account, or scramble to pay for an unexpected and costly emergency, or stress about how you'll make next month's mortgage payment if you lose your job.
And best of all, if you're even a little bit smart about it, you'll be able to retire young. Then you can do any kind of work that makes you feel fulfilled, without having to worry about getting paid for it.
Think about it, when we were in high school, if we could just graduate and turn 18 then we'd be grown up, mature, and happy.
In college, if we could just graduate and get that coveted degree, then we'd be successful and people would give us the respect we deserve.
Okay, now we've got a degree, if I can just find a job paying at least...
Hmm, I've got that job but I wish it gave me more fulfillment. If I could get the job that guy has, then I'd be much happier and people would see how successful I am. Oh yeah, and it pays more so I can get more toys.
Oh no, Mr SoAndSo saw me driving my Accord. I better go talk to the dealer about leasing a Lexus so the clients at work won't think I'm second rate. Oh yeah, and Bob bought that new big screen tv at Best Buy - I think I saw one two inches bigger at Circuit City that I may have to go look at.
Well, these new toys are pretty fun, but I'm still kinda lonely. All I need now is a wife... Then I can sit back and relax and enjoy being successful.
Now this is nice, loving wife, good job, lots of toys. I should build me a nice big house by the lake. Then I'd have it all.
I've got to go talk to the loan officer about that educational assistance so I can send my kids to one of their top choice ivy league schools.
When does the cycle end? The problem is, life doesn't build to some climatic point where we can sit back as say "Now I'm happy and successful." It just keeps chugging on like a machine. And yet, we keep looking for that magic something that will complete the puzzle.
We're not the first ones to go through this cycle. Take a minute and read Ecclesiastes. I am a Christian, but this is an interesting read even if you're not. King Solomon sets out to find meaning in life. If there ever was a person that could find enjoyment and happiness in life outside of God, Solomon could. He had done it all. Considered to be one of the wisest men of all time, he had intelligence, wealth, power - anything he wanted could be his. And he goes through it all and declares it to be vanity. He makes the conclusion that we can't find happiness and fullfillment outside of God.
Of course, once you begin searching for God, you run into a whole host of other issues to deal with. Ecclesiastes is a very honest book. There are two chapters dealing with atheism. In Ecclesiastes, the covenant name of God, Yahweh, is never used. Instead, Solomon refers to God euphemistically by other references and names. Some scholars believe that this book is written intentionally with the nonbeliever in mind. Ecclesiastes addresses someone who has sincere questions about life and the nature of God. It was interesting to me that the article at FastCompany explores some of the same issues that Solomon does.
Ecclesiastes is sometimes difficult to understand because we are unfamiliar with the language and illustrations. If you are really interested in studying the book, you might try reading the following book by Tommy Nelson:
The Problem of Life With God: Living with a Perfect God in an Imperfect World
(Tommy Nelson is the same guy that did a series on the Song of Solomon - a study about love, romance, and marriage. If you're struggling with those issues (don't we all?) you should strongly consider studying that book of the Bible. More resources are available at: www.thesongofsolomon.com. )
The conclusion of King Solomon is that we should enjoy life today. Be happy with what we have. Love and serve God on a daily basis - trusting Him with the big questions we don't understand. How many times do we let what we don't understand ruin what we could enjoy today? How many times do we miss the special moments of today because we're too busy trying to get to that magical point in life where everything clicks?
I know this post may open up a whole can of trolls, but for those of you who are honestly searching for answers to questions like this, I suggest that you at least give it a read and decide for yourself. It's good stuff that has made a difference in my life and in the life of people around me. I'm one of the lucky ones who has been able to hang onto a tech job during these last couple of hard years. And for the most part, I've been able to buy the toys and "stuff" that I've wanted. But I found myself not happy despite it all. I was just accumulating things and not really enjoying any of it.
I've tried lately to make it a point to slow down and enjoy the things I have - enjoy my family, enjoy my work, and spend time with the guys doing guy things ("Let's go lift heavy objects and put them back down again."). I stopped staying late at work trying to impress someone enough to get promoted and I spent that time down at the tutoring center playing with kids that don't get enough attention at home. If you want fullfillment, go spend some time with one of them - a kid comes in with a frown on her face and leaves laughing - that's success.
I think we're looking in all the wrong places.
But, when you make your work and your play the same thing, then everyday is a joy.
When one falters, the other suffers. Don't make your career your life, or your life your career.
Maybe I'm the only parent in all of Slashdot?
After my daughter was born, I realized that nothing that my career could provide me was going to be more satisfying or more important that what I could do for her, specifically, and for others, generally. I found a city 1000 miles away that was a better place to raise her and found a new job there, one that has a 40 hour work week 80-90% of the time. I have the time to spend with my daughter that I wanted, and my wife, and that makes me happier.
And . . . I'm just getting settled into the new city, new job, new home here (it's been under six months), but now I'm asking the question in a serious way -- What should I do with my life? And the answers I keep getting back involved how I spend all those hours other than the 40 in the office, not just with my family, but with my community, with people who have less than me, with a system of politics in the U.S. that I think is fundamentally broken in all the obvious ways and others not so obvious, with the world. I could try to find a job in that, but I really don't think there is one that pays me to do the things I want to do to make a difference, and I won't accept the logic of this article, which seems would make those possibilities outside of a career invisible.
My new job is fine. I get to use my IT skills, it pays enough, I like the people I work with well enough. Sometimes I like it more, and sometimes I like it less. It isn't a wild rollercoaster with 80 hour weeks and crazy deadlines (which I loved and hated), like my last job. But I never dread coming to the office, not even on my worst day of work. It's good enough for me, and it gives me the change to not let my career define me, and not let my career shape the possibilities for what will make me happy and satisfied. And this article missed that, completely.
I've spent the last year doing nothing in far-off places: in short, I took a Gap year. I met people who's dreams ranged from seeing a sunrise in every country in the world, to seeing one plant grow in their yard. Why did I take a year away from my future and spend a great deal of money on the process? To try and uncover the surface of this post - what do I want to do with my life. Did I find the answer? Not especially. I found a what a whole bunch of other people want to do with their lives, but couln't come to grips with what I wanted with mine. And then it hit me, while sitting in the Auckland airport.
I want to create something beautiful. I want to bring something that I see as beauty into the world.
I haven't found what that will be - will it be a memory of a scene in a foerign land, will it be a circuit so efficient and well made that the only fittign word is beautiful - but that's what I want to do. But to generalize, isn't that what we all want to do? Pick anyone famous, and within a few minutes you can find the beauty the sought to produce. Plato? The idea of the rule of the people. Einstein? A family (but look what he cam up with to get there). Hitler? A pure aryan race - he saw that as beauty, despite the fact that most of us don't.
So there you have it. What do I want to do with my life? Make something beautiful. Now, I just have to discover what that's gonna be...
Cue The Sun...
As a Christian, I have to agree with you that part of what drives my faith is a desire to make sense of the insansity of this world, but I believe everyone does this, not just 'theists'.
An atheist does this by saying, "all the evil (and all the good) in the world is completely random and I shouldn't bother with trying to understand why it is happening". A theist on the other hand believes a supernatural explanation for the evil in the world. In the case of the Christian, he or she believes the Bible's explanation for evil, that the sin of man is at the root of all evil, and only by the redemptive work of Christ on the cross can we be saved.
An honest atheist would have to agree that their approach to dealing with life is as much about what they believe (ie, have faith in) about the world than about what can actually be proven about it.
If you are still not buying this, I highly recommend C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. Lewis was a staunch atheist who became probably the best Christian writer of the 20th century. He presents the case for Christianity in a number of reasoned and very logical arguments.
Allow me to elucidate so that I can more clearly explain what I inferred from your comment. I am an atheist. I am also, by any reasonable standards, a "good" person. By this, I mean that I pay my taxes. I obey the laws (well, I might speed a bit in the car from time to time and pull down the occasional MP3 from Gnutella, but I'm not hurting anybody.) I treat other people well. I donate money to charities. I hold the door open for little old ladies at the grocery store. I've never been convicted of (or accused of) a crime in my life. Unless you attach some narrow religious qualifier on the definition of "good", I don't see how the point can be made that I, in general, am not "good."
.. as it turns out, that's a pretty easy one to figure out.
You are suggesting that atheists believe that my behavior in this manner is a result of complete random chance. This is silliness. Might I, at some point, encounter a stranger on the street and stab them to death, and then look down horrified at a bloody knife and say "Oh, no! Drat that random chance! Look what I've done now!"
Yes, it's true that life does not need to have a grand purpose for it to be worthwhile and enjoyable. That has nothing to do with good and evil being "random events", as you postulate. There are lots of random events that happen in the universe, but moral and ethical behaviors are not among them. Thousands of years of human civilization have taught us that there are behaviors that are harmful to society in general and that there are behaviors that are beneficial. The Bible does not have a monopoly on basic rules such as "thou shalt not kill"