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What Should I Do With My Life?
Given all that, I figured What Should I Do With My Life? was pretty much written for me. The book tells the true stories of dozens of people who made hard decisions and gave up careers, educations, and lifestyles in order to give themselves reasons to get up every morning, and maybe to find true happiness. In researching the book, Po Bronson interviewed nearly a thousand people all over the US, and got to know some of them very well. He intertwines their stories with his own personal tale, and often pauses between stories to reflect on everything he saw and learned while writing the book.
So how's the book? Good and bad.
I had hoped to distill some great truth from these stories -- to leave with a clear sense of the changes I have to make, and with the resolve to make them. No dice. To be fair, Bronson never promises any such thing; in fact, he promises quite the opposite. And rightfully so. There are certainly no silver bullets here.
But my real problem with What Should I Do With My Life? is that I couldn't identify with so many of its subjects, and eventually that turned me off. It felt like four out of five people had law degrees or worked in finance or politics. Very few were geeks, or even grunt-level office 9-to-5'ers. In his introduction Bronson says "the people in this book are ordinary people," but it didn't feel that way. An ex-doctor whose father was a famous cardiologist; a Hollywood production executive; an established Hollywood screenwriter; CFOs, CEOs; guys that sold startups for millions. A PhD marine biologist who "quit and became a dentist." Wowie.
Even Bronson's generalizations alienated me. The "we" that define ourselves by our salary or possessions or career achievements -- that's not my "we." I think (hope?) Bronson has spent so much time in Silicon Valley culture that he's over-projecting. Maybe I'm not ambitious enough, but I've never been a careerist and neither have my friends. So when Bronson steps back so say we need to fight the urge to justify ourselves by our status, I think "who's 'we'? I never had that urge." I've never had anything to prove to anyone but myself; yet I still feel trapped by some of the life/career decisions I've made.
Now, the book doesn't focus solely on outstanding people. It's just that once I noticed all the med school and law degrees and sold-her-third-startup, I couldn't not notice them anymore, and I'd say to myself "maybe this book isn't for me after all. I'm nothing like these people."
But enough bitching. There's some great stuff in the book as well and some stories really connected with me: the attorney turned trucker; the husband/wife team that bought a tree farm; the would-be Olympic athlete who had to give it up for motherhood; and more. Better yet, some concepts stayed with me. For instance, the this-should-be-obvious concept that local cultures shape expectations and self-worth differently. "In Los Angeles, if you say you're a musician, you're asked ... are you, or will you be, successful? In New Orleans, if you say you're a musician, then people accept that you're a musician, even if you jam one night a week at some dive with no audience." Nice.
My favorite concept from this book is one of Bronson's closing points: the reminder that all you get is a glimmer. The rest is all you and your willingness to to see where that glimmer takes you. I've lived this -- it's true in the creation of good software, it's true in making records, it's true in any creative pursuit. Eureka moments rarely happen, so don't wait around for one.
I found myself flying through this book -- it's written in a nice, casual tone and it's an easy read. But reading quickly was a mistake. I suggest reading a chapter or two at a time, then putting the book down to digest it. Otherwise it's too easy for people and stories to blur together or be forgotten entirely. Maybe that's why the online excerpts were so compelling -- I was left with 2 pages to think about instead of 75.
Okay, so Po Bronson didn't provide the answers to all my problems. But he got me to frame my "what am I doing to do" question better, and he got me to take it seriously. That's worth $15 right there. It's also uplifting to read about people who have found their bliss. There is hope!
I'll lend this book to a lot of friends and I'll probably buy copies for a few as well. It's worth a read.
Whether or not you buy the book, I strongly recommend reading the aforementioned NPR interview and excerpted chapter. Those alone address some great points and will get you thinking.
You can purchase What Should I Do With My Life? from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page. You may also want to visit Po Bronson homepage: pobronson.com."
Become a laid off programmer who can't find a fulltime job like most of us! I know, I know, it's sounds a little crazy but besides being broke, depressed and out of energy you'll love it!
Good review, but I'm curious: how do you give up an "education?" I mean, you can decide not to continue with an education, but the theory is (I hope) that once you have it, education sorta -- more or less -- sticks. Although this might not apply if you're an idiot.
Give it a meaning. Do not search for one, give one, create a meaning.
Never forget: You are the center of your world. You are the reason for your decisions.
An ex-doctor whose father was a famous cardiologist; a Hollywood production executive; an established Hollywood screenwriter; CFOs, CEOs; guys that sold startups for millions. A PhD marine biologist who "quit and became a dentist." Wowie.
Some of the local papers run these stories too--about people who cashed in on the "hectic dot com lifestyle" to run a bed and breakfast or some sort. Makes it a lot easier to "get out of the rat race" when you have a nice, fat bank account to fall back on.
I am much more impressed, as you note, with those who are not independently wealthy, but chunk the opportunity to become so in order to follow their dreams. Like, say, the teacher I married.
And no, I don't have a problem with those pursuing wealth above all else either...as long as they are fulfilled its their own choice to make.
I pulled a jack move to cop this sig
I've rarely seen a career advice book that had any useful advice, and this sounds as if it fits into that pile.
I've changed directions several times in my life, and in most cases it's been a leap up (or at least not a leap back). The main thing is finding what you like to do, what you want to achieve, and a way to do it legally while making money. Sure there's compromises, stretches, and training, but no one promised life would be easy.
I expect to see more and more books on Careers with this economy. Look soon for a book where some author explains or studies people who left IT for other careers.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Do what you love. No one wants to breathe their last with a sigh of wasted days. Live life fully daily. Life's too short to waste an entire day with a hangover. I have never heard anyone lament on their deathbed "I never should have bought that nice stereo".
I love programming, cold weather and storms. I don't have time for dread. Life is meant to be lived and I'm all over it. BANZAI!!!
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
> I am "successful" in my career. But I've found my day job unfulfilling for years, and as a
>musician I often wonder if I should follow my heart elsewhere.
Let me offer you the other side of the coin.
I was a musician since I was a little kid. I have a music degree from a big-name private music school. Playing was, and is, something that I very much enjoy.
I've also programmed as a hobby since I was a kid, since starting out on a Trash-80. Computers were something that interested me, but I never considered making a career out of it.
In 1996, I was a year out of college. I was living on a friend's couch, and eating cold cereal and canned beans three meals a day. I had *no* money, and no real prospects for making any.
A friend of a friend of a friend was running a porn site, and the business had grown to the point where he needed help. He offered me a job, part time, sorting pictures and answering customer email. Over time, I learned html, then perl, then server administration, blah blah blah.
Fast-forward seven years. I run my own consultancy. I work in my bathrobe most days. I eat cold cereal and canned beans (sometimes) because I happen to like them, not because this week's food budget is $4. I still play, but only for fun. Life is good.
Art is great, but be prepared to be a pauper if you're going to try to make a living at it. If you can deal with complete and utter poverty, go for it. For me, it just wasn't worth it.
Even Bronson's generalizations alienated me. The "we" that define ourselves by our salary or possessions or career achievements
That probably says a lot about why he wrote the book. He probably over-generalized to everyone, but make no mistake: that's American society in a nutshell (i.e. - most people). It's these people who spend their lives never really thinking about where they're going. "I guess I'll go to college" "I guess this will be my career" "I guess I'll get married". People for the most part just never really THINK about their lives, their place in the world, about much of ANYTHING. I guess for some of us we tend to take for granted that you just sit idle some time to think about things, but it's sort of a shocker to a lot of people who are too busy selling their soul to a corporation for some menial gain in their trivial materialistic lives.
I'd say become a freelance consultant.
I worked for myself for a while. I spent a lot of
time with my youngest boy. I worked out of the house and was Mr. Mom for a while. It was cool, you
can't replace the time I had off with anything. I didn't have any worries then, no house, I rented from my in-laws. Now I've got a mortgate and an equity loan and bills bills bills. I've got to work. I hope to be able to design a widget on my own time that would allow me to retire early.. other than that my house will be paid off when I'm 65, Maybe earlier if I sneak in an extra payment per year.
What's all this whining about fulfilment anyway.
I work because I have a family and obligations.
I use my family to benchmark my life, not my job.
Po Bronson used to write books about over-educated white people in Silicon Valley. Now - the ultimate question has been answered by more over-educated multi-degreed white people on what they should do with their lives. That a book like this even gets published blows my mind except the obviously self-indulged have an urge to read about the other 2 percent of people in the world just like them.
The stories are so snore-inducing I could barely keep my eyes from jumping and skimming paragraphs ahead to locate something of interest. How many times did my head hit the pages? I started to wonder if the "kinder, gentler Po Bronson" with his soft-spoken voice and new age-y happy talk might have intended the book as a subliminal Deepak Chopra-esque meditation vehicle of some sort. Your eyes are getting heavy, you find yourself drifting off....
At the end I wouldn't have given you a plug nickel for anyone in the book and some of them were more repugnant than others in their whiny-ness and cluelessness. Like the one who went to medical school and decided to drop out after two months because she "didn't like sick people" like what the hell, hadn't she ever BEEN to a Doctor before? Didn't she KNOW that's what they do?
The book is filled with the stories of people who live within a 300 mile radius of San Francisco. Just about everyone is from the area from LA to Seattle with only a few out of this main drag as filler (or to make the book seem more serious). I used to live in this area. Insufferable individuals, who are overly impressed with themselves like the ones in this book, are why I don't live there any longer.
Most impressed with himself is the author, Po Bronson, who liberally infuses the book with cutaways into his own miraculous existence. Although he takes the blame for ruining his first marriage by cheating on his wife, he also calls her a West Coast Feminist and contrasts that with his new wife, who apparently stays much more in her place and defers to Po and let's him feel all big and strong and manly. In fact there are several thinly veiled insults to his former wife (who does not have a name) which are supremely tacky since she was with him for 12 years and pretty much encouraged and fostered his entire writing career. Way to go, Po! And perhaps a warning - look for the wolf in sheep's clothing wife number two.
Not to mention that after somewhat accidentally ending up a father, Po goes on to slam his former ideals about not wanting children. Then he slams all people who choose NOT to breed as doing it out of FEAR. He thinks it takes courage to procreate and raise children. He says, it's not that big a deal, really. Well, NOT IF YOU ARE A MAN.
What world does this guy live in? He crows about HONESTY yet I see little in this book. This is like those supposed "reality" TV shows where you go to a lush island and try to "survive" knowing there is a crew chuckwagon and medical staff standing two feet from the camera in case you stub your toe.
This is a book for the RATIONALIZATION GENERATION. The same kids he wrote about in Silicon Valley who need to pat themselves on the back and tell themselves that it's ok they lost a billion dollars. This is a book for the privelaged who need validation. Or as Bronson calls them "people with more choices" than "the working class". Right. You mean the people who actually WORK and don't cry in Starbucks about what LOSERS they are.
The people profiled in this book didn't take any REAL risks. In fact, most of them didn't do anything but change jobs here and there or think about changing a job or consider switching enterprises within their same field. There are only a scant few who chuck it all to weave baskets (in this case sell trees, farm catfish, become a long-haul trucker) and truthfully they are the only stories that have a modicum of impact. The rest are the kind of people you would move away from quickly at a cocktail party.
And Bronson himself is the one you'd want to beat feet from the fastest. He truly needs to GET OVER HIMSELF. Maybe that should be his next book, "What should I do to GET OVER MYSELF."
I think there is a simple route cause for many people's unhappiness with their careers - they are using other people's criteria for what "successful" means.
When I was in my early twenties, just after I left university, I was full of ambition, and was going to rule the world, and be a "success". I met a guy in his 30s at a party who was a gardener. He had a crappy rented flat and was paid next to nothing tending people's gardens. I thought, what a loser, when I'm his age I'm going to be successful and rich! And I told him as much. He looked me straight in the eye and told me he was the most successful person he knew. He spent all day outside doing a job he loved, he had little stress and didn't feel the need to have loads of stuff or a big house. And he told me I didn't understand myself yet. I remember thinking he was loser and a jerk, and knowing what I was like then I expect that came across quite clearly.
Now I'm older I can imagine that conversation, and I cringe at who I was then. I was the jerk, and he was right - he was a success and I didn't know what I wanted. Thankfully I do now, and I'm very happy doing a job I love.
But I still have friends who are really "successful" but really unhappy. I told one recently that he should give up his (very "successful") career in insurance and become an interior decorator (which is what he had always wanted to do when he was younger). His response was "are you nuts? I couldn't possibly do that. Everyone would think I was crazy."
Ho hum.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
We only live once (that we know of) so make the most of it. If you live right, once is enough.
:)
I do anything I want to, if it interests me. Why? Because I can. I've been with OSHA, I've been a race car driver, I've been a writer, worked in a tattoo shop, network engineer, among other things.
Not for money or fame, I don't care about that, I did it because I wanted to. And I am richer (not in terms of wealth) for it. The experiences will last a lifetime, far beyond the thrill of a new computer or a new kernel upgrade.
Life finds a way to working itself out. I've never been homeless, even though I was jobless for a year. Even then, life had something to offer, if we would only learn from it.
As an aside, of all the jobs I've held, the illegal ones were most fun
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Sometimes doing what you love for income does not work. I love flying, and regulary use MS Flight Simulator 2002. And I also fly the real thing, a rented Cessna 172, and am slowly earning my private pilot licence. I love to fly, but my income is consulting and work I get through the S corp. So I so not earn through my passion, but I am free enough that when I want to fly on a Wednesday morning, I do so without having to "take off work" or "call in sick". I just don't book a selling appointment Wed. morning and I'm free as a bird. And having an uncle in the U.K. and some family in Italy too I know many other contries allow people to incorperate. But in the USA the benefits you get for being a "partner" of the Governemnt are amazing (as someone who might create jobs and also spends a lot on inventory, supplies, etc). Anyway, good luck!
First, let me apologize in advance for the rant that will follow. It is kind of hard to say this stuff without sounding like an elitist f*ckwad. I do not intend to come off this way. And I tie this into the current topic at the end, so bear with me. Without further ado...
...er, [insert some tv actress' name here]. I also noticed that with one exception, the more television a friend of mine watched, the more likely they were to favor a war in Iraq. I found that particularly troubling.
...well what do you think you'd be doing if it was on?
In 1996 I doused my television with lighter fluid and did you-know-what. I really only expected to not be chained to it anymore but its effects got a lot more profound than that; around 2001 I actually began to have thoughts of my own that I couldn't trace to any marketing effort.
Further, we're social things, we humans. We float ideas we develop past them and find out what sticks and what doesn't and respond accordingly. But who are our "friends" these days? Friends, that's who. Granted, not entirely. And for some more than others. But who do you see more of -- your flesh-and-blood friends or actors? The question is rhetorical so answer honestly after thinking about it for a few minutes.
I bring this last point up because with this whole Iraq war looming, for example, I realized I was forming my own opinions instead of abrogating this responsibility to the television. I no longer had a group of electronic friends that would keep my thinking corraled within the bounds of "acceptable," whether that be Dan Rather or
Does this seems silly? Like I'm off the deep end? How many of your ideas of right and wrong coincide with how television would present it? Is this a coincidence? Is it also a coincidence that our media-drenched society is also significantly out of touch with the entire rest of the world and observably so (if you bother to look, anyway).
To borrow a page from Adbusters, go sit in front of your TV but don't turn it on. Sit there for an hour looking at it. If the first idea through your head is "that's nonsense, I'm not going to do nothing for a whole hour"
So to answer the question of this post, "What Should [You] Do With Your Life?" I don't know. That's up to you. But don't get the answer from a book, regardless of how well it is written. If you're looking to a book to answer that question for you, I would suggest you have bigger issues.
Thanks for reading this far.
My
Limekiller
I believe that many people are truly stuck in their current jobs because they don't have the savings or support to make the leap. Hence, most of the success stories you read are about those people who sold their company, or had a high income previously, simply because those are the people who were able to make the leap.
I've been coding professionally for ten years. I am "successful" in my career. But I've found my day job unfulfilling for years, and as a musician I often wonder if I should follow my heart elsewhere. I imagine I'm not the only Slashdot reader who fits this description."
I have 3 months until I no longer have to deal with IT as a career again. Everytime I see these half-ass Tech School commercials on the local cable, I titter with dementia. "A fulfilling career in which you can go places!" What-fucking-ever. 9 years after stupidly volunteering for training on AIX, I am getting my terminal degree and heading to the promised land -- academia -- to do what I have always dream of.
It is difficult to express how jaded I am with the tech industry and to be honest my feelings really have little to do with my peers (who work their asses off and get no credit) but with PHBs and, most of all, users. Just before typing this post, I got off the phone with a woman who bypassed the helpdesk and sussed out (somehow) that I was the person responsible for a part of our web services platform. Of course, the problem had nothing to do with what I was responsible for. She was using an old version of IE which didn't support something in the interface. If she had called the helpdesk, she would have been told the same thing by a person who would have known instantly what the problem was. It took me 30 minutes (read $15 of taxpayer money) to figure this out simply because I am not familiar with the problem. Why did she bypass the helpdesk? Well, they cut a ticket on each call and track users and their recurring problems. In other words, they do their jobs. I asked why this was a problem. "They don't like to talk to me." A quick search shows hundreds of calls in the past year from this person. I told her that my help was a one time shot and she needed to call the helpdesk from now on. She got all pissed and said "No. Now I have a man on the inside." Fuck that. Found her supervisor and put her ass on notice. I am tired of being a bitch to people who couldn't fuck their way out of a wet paper bag.
I know. My mistake was helping her in the first place, but do you just stomp past the reception desk at the emergency room and demand that a doctor fix your hangnail? No.
So I am going to do something interesting that doesn't pay shit and is low-tech and let's me hide for 3 months of the year -- college professor.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
I seem to have touched a raw nerve. Sorry!
You thought he was a jerk, and with good reason: He was telling you his own view of what success is.
No he wasn't. He didn't tell me what "successful" meant, only that, according to his own criteria for success, he was successful, and screw what anyone else thought. He also told me that I didn't understand myself, and he was right about that.
The whole point of my post was that, you have to make your own criteria for success. Don't get confused by what your co-workers, or your mom, or your friends think.
you know... its completely possible he owned three successful high tech companies and decided his 500 million in net worth entitled him to do a bit of gardening. that's the problem with making assumptions based on appearences.
I can see that the point of my story is lost on some people. Oh well...
I watch TV and (gasp!) have independent thoughts. All things in moderation.
a) what's the point of an college education when you might learn more outside of school? i note your use of quotes around education... but really that just nullifies your statement. don't we always learn? and if so, aren't we always educating ourselves?
b) what's the point of a formal education when you might not get to study exactly what you want? so, i didn't take high school as seriously as i might have. i was a B, B+ student. well that translated into not getting into a school like UCB or MIT where i could've taken a degree that was a little more out there. (i would've preferred an art-computer science hybrid.) i had to settle for a college education that centered more around CS and enrich my life on the side with artistic pursuits.
i got into grad school and dropped out midway through the first semester solely because i could've aced a master's degree but i would've totally missed out on becoming a master of what i really love.
c) and in a result of that, i now find myself with and degree in computer engineering, but no easy way to pursue a degree in art or any of these new art-computer degrees that have been around for the last few years. i have too much XP for a bachelors program, but not quite enough paper to back up my readiness for a masters. sometimes having that slip of paper is a hinderance.
of course, these are just mistakes and lessons i've learned... (which, the lessons could be mistakes on their own.)
m.
I know many people who cashed in their chips and made the brave and bold move to start up their own business, and nearly all of them failed. --I know a LOT of people who ended up in debt up to their ears, out of business and out of luck less than two years later. The banks tell us that statistically, only 1 in 5 business start-ups go anywhere. This is the truth.
HOWEVER. . . This does not mean that following one's dream is a bad idea. In fact, I happen to believe that it is the ONLY idea worth investing in, and that it can't go wrong so long as you are true to yourself. --You've heard that before, but let's think about it. .
You see, there are commonalities to all of the stories of failure, and they are, Too Little Planning and Too Much Wishful Thinking. The results are poor execution, and then failure. This cannot be overstated! --It is entirely true that if you follow your heart, you cannot fail. But many, many people don't follow their hearts. They follow illusions.
I have been amazed at the number of times I have watched a friend or acquaintance make a stupendously awful business decision, and when I gently suggest a way to correct the problem, I am barked at for, "Being Mean," for "Attacking my Dream," for, "Undermining my Positive Thinking." Etc, etc.
Yes, it is a million times more comfortable to pretend that Everything Is Alright, than it is to acknowledge that one has made an error in judgment and to then fix that error, but if you conduct yourself in such a delusional manner, you can be pretty much guaranteed to be on the skids 2 years later. This seems obvious, but clearly it is a huge issue. (1 in 5. .
When people ask my advice on starting one's own company, I stress 2 things.
In any case, though, you can sort of see why people get upset with me. Living in illusion is a helluva lot more comfy than facing these kinds of truths. But that's life; it's hard and it's unforgiving to those who refuse to look at things in an honest light. If you can't deal with that, then go back to selling burgers and quit complaining. --By contrast, however, when you DO start looking at the hard questions and when you DO start working to solve those problems in a diligent manner, then the Universe will start doling out luck and opportunities galore. I'm not kidding one little bit. Once you stop chasing illusions and determine the true nature of your path, then the Universe falls in love with you and will help you along. The Universe loves those who are willing to self-examine and strive for self-improvement. The reason for this is that the Universe knows just how devastatingly difficult this is to actually do, it knows how hard it is to earn the skills required to participate in a field in a meaningful way, and it rewards people accordingly.
The other thing to keep in mind, (and this one is golden!), is that dreams are easily transferable from one industry to another, and that aiming to acquire one stream of income is not the only or the best model for success.
For example, let's say you want to be a musician; you want to sing and write music for a living. Well, there are many, many ways to write music and sing which entirely by-pass the whole Top 40, going on tour, strutting on stage, big music label, route. There are, in fact, many unexplored ways to make music and also pay the bills. Music is a valued commodity, and there are many aspects to it which require skilled people in many different fields, in many different mediums.
Just because you happen to, say, end up as a technical producer at a recording studio, doesn't mean that you can't also write and record your own songs, etc. You might be able to book free time at the studio you work in. You might be able to take a summer off and play at pubs and sell your CD. You might meet other musicians and share ideas. Heck, perhaps you'll go the other way and discover that you find joy in repairing and building guitars and selling hand-crafted instruments. There are a million ways to build a fulfilling career. It's vital to remember that it's okay to not be on the cover of Rolling Stone. --Of course, if your heart is set on being a famous musician, if that is where the lodestone of your soul directs you without mercy, then chances are, if you play it smart and do your homework, then yes, you probably WILL end up on the cover of Rolling Stone. But most people's lodestones do not point that way, and those people need to be honest and listen more carefully to themselves in order to learn what will make them happy in the long run.
Just a few thoughts to consider.
-Fantastic Lad
I'm halfway through this book now, and Po struggled with the class issues a little himself. He wondered if the whole question isn't a little bourgeois. He discovered that that isn't the case - lower and middle class people struggle with the same questions.
Maybe a person with more money has more options, but more options does not necessarily make a decision easier, either.
Also: in general, people tend to spend what they make. The guy who makes $200k might be just as leveraged and stuck as a guy who makes $30k. OK, he drives a cooler car, but does that, in itself, make him less noble?
you.
I think the thing that irritates me the most about these types of discussions is the insistance that there is this "perfect job" out there, or the "perfect friends", or whatever, and "if only you can find that..." We have completely externalized the idea of happiness and insist that it has to be "out there somewhere". Rather than enjoying life, we're so busy searching for it.
What I've found is that the only true path to happiness is to love yourself. Unconditionally. This is the only starting point we can go from. Sure, everyone makes mistakes, sure, no one's perfect, but we have to believe in ourselves because the world sure as hell isn't going to do that for us. That's not anyone else's job. It's our own.
Think about it. If everything in your life is taken away from you, what have you got left? Just yourself. And that has to be the most important thing. There are all sorts of support structures in life: a good job, friends, family, you name it. But if you simply can't exist without these, then you're allowing your life to be held up at the expense of these supports, without paying any attention to the foundation (you!).
There is no Question. There is only a collection of confused souls floundering about in the vastness of the world, searching for a Meaning that they themselves created!
Be happy with yourself. Do what you need to do to make money, but understand that YOU are the answer. Have a beer with some buddies from time to time, find a place to relax, get yourself moving whenever you start pondering "The Question"! (God, I hate that phrase...) Because, unfortunately, there is no Answer.
In case you're wondering, I'm working in the IT field at the moment, but I can still have fun from time to time. Life is not just fun times, anyway, it's difficulty and stress thrown in there as well. To tell the truth, I think I'd feel a bit strange if it was any other way.
The major difference, I think, between those people who are satisfied with their lives and those that aren't is a matter of personal philosophy and personality. Sometimes it's a good idea to hang around with coworkers who seem to "have it all together", not only to see that it can be done, but also to realize the humanity of these so-called "gods".
We're all in this game of life together. I, for my part, intend to have a good time ;)
"Seems like all the best programmers we've hired are also musicians."
:-D
Very true. We used to joke here where I work about how we generally didn't hire programmers to program. It basicaly went like "we've got a film-maker (physicist), a poet (physicist), a jazz musician (mathematician), a DJ (english major), and one computer science guy". And that was pretty much true... forget the fact that the two physicists and the mathematician really had been trained in CS, as well, it makes a better story that way.
The point is, though, that outside of a very corporate, dilbertesque world, the quality of the person makes a much bigger difference than his/her specific training. Programming languages and systems can be learned, but intelligence, creativity and passion really can't.
:Wq
Not an editor command: Wq
FWIW, I've been doing that for the last 11 years, and I've decided it's got to end. It's a schizophrenic existence, and I find, because my "hobbies" also require a high level of commitment and administrative/management skill, that there is a tug-of-war between them for my energy. I can only put up with so much administrative bullshit in a day, which is going to get it: my job or my volunteer work?
I find I'm mentally in a place where I want my life to "hang together" better. I don't want to have to shift so much between work-mode and play-mode.
And this is part of the value of the book under discussion: it talks about the difference between expecting your job to be fun or entertaining (on one hand) and expecting your job to be satisfying and meaningful (on the other).
I'm not looking for a job that's "fun", but I need to do work the value of which is not solely in that it funds things which are of value to me. I need, increasingly, my work to feel like it makes a positive contribution to my community/world.
To bring this home a little: I'm a web dev. I've worked on a lot of corporate brochure-ware web sites. I feel proud of the quality of my work, and the value I gave for the money I way paid -- as a good craftsman will. But that's not enough any more. I now do web dev for a edu non-profit, which is better, I suppose, but also still not enough.
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
Yeah, these make great soundbites, the stories of people who spend years foolishly getting rich on lucrative but unsatisfying jobs and eventually decide to cash in and do something moer worthwhile. What annoys me, though, is that Bronson and the media following his story seem to have no interest in those of us who never went astray in the first place. Bronson rhapsodizes over a disillusioned investment banker who "downsizes" by buying eighty acres of farmland - how many people who've spent their lives as, say, teachers or writers can afford that? And what happened to the family farmer who used to own that land - d'ya suppose maybe he lost it to a BANKER somewhere along the line?
And then there's Bronson's trucker who quit the venal, awful music law business to spend more time with his kid...well, good for him, but I know dozens of actual creative musicians who had to ditch their dreams because of venal, awful music lawyers like the trucker admits he used to be. Many of them would LOVE to be able to afford the tuition to go to trucker school.
I'm all in favor of people reconsidering their values, and it's never too late to turn around. But the homeless shelter where I live is full of unemployed teachers, professors, network administrators, graphic designers who followed their consciences all their lives. So my admiration for people who waste half their lives getting rich enough to finally do something REAL is, shall we say, limited.
If you think that having all that claptrap in the first place makes someone lucky, then of course you don't get it. If you beleive that being wealthy means that you have a good life, then no wonder you don't have sympathy for people in that situation. Besides which, if you think that living on $50K (gross) requires "survival skills," you're in the same absurdly wealthy class as those earning $200K, relative to that 99.999% of humanity you talk about.
Let me tell you something. Money ain't shit. Once you've got enough for food, shelter and education, there's no correlation between having more and being happier. Really. None. There are two obvious conclusions to be drawn from this:
If you're awake the lesson of this book isn't "The wealthy occasionally choose to be a little less wealthy. How noble." but "Sometimes people realize that money isn't making them happy. Once you get this, you can spend your like taking care of yourself instead of chasing the Almighty Dollar."
Look at it this way: Maybe the reason you hear about whiny rich people chucking it all to "find themselves" is because they needed to have wealth before they could stop and look at it and realize that it wasn't worth going for after all. As long as you think that you're not wealthy enough yet, you can maintain the illusion that maybe the next dollar will be the one to make you happy. Someone (like you) can look at those who have $200K and figure "Hey, they must have it good. I'm jealous."
Now, you've got three choices as I see it. You can live the rest of your life not making $200K/year, but being jealous of those who do. That's just pathetic. Or, you can figure out what you have to do to make $200K/year yourself. That's a waste of your life, but at least you're not stewing with impotent envy. Or, you can realize now that having that kind of money isn't worth anything, take pity on people who've wasted their precious life on aquiring it, and put your life into something worthwhile. What'll it be?