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What Should I Do With My Life? 609

Posted by michael from the spend-more-time-reading-slashdot dept.
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."
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What Should I Do With My Life? More

What Should I Do With My Life?

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  • I know what I'd like (Score:4, Funny)

    by TerryAtWork ( 598364 ) <research@aceretail.com> on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:00AM (#4998722)
    I'd to be solvent when I'm old, and I think I'm not alone in that.

  • All work and no play... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:01AM (#4998728)
    ...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)

    • Re:All work and no play... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sisukapalli1 ( 471175 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:26AM (#4998866)

      when you make your work and your play the same thing, then everyday is a joy

      The general pitfall is that instead of everyday becoming a joy, it may end up becoming a job

      S
      • True -- sometimes hobbies grow into jobs. And that can be a good or bad thing.

        What I've seen be a real problem, tho, is with people whose work and play are so contiguous that they lose the distinction and it becomes an obsession.

    • Re:All work and no play... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by johnstein ( 602156 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @12:17PM (#4999309) Journal
      but if your favorite hobby (or passion) is your job, you have just lost your favorite hobby, haven't you?

      and what about the chance that turning your hobby into your job will make you not like your hobby so much?

      to me, a hobby is a way for me to escape the rigors and rigidity or the workplace, though i am sure it can be argued if your job is your passion, then why would you want to escape it? i guess in the end its all a matter of personal perception.

    • "...But, when you make your work and your play the same thing,...."

      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!

    • 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.

      • Re:All work and no play... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by schlach ( 228441 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @02:43PM (#5000521) Journal

        Then you're automatically cutting out about 10 hours of your day, the majority of your waking hours, 5 days a week (at least). You may start living in the margins, "working for the weekend", ie not taking advantage of weeknights because you have to work the next day, saving your fun for the weekend, dreading the start of the next week, etc. etc.

        How much better to enjoy everything you do, to wonder to yourself how you happened to find people who would pay you to do what you want, though you would do it for free.

    • On that line of thought... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by WotanKhan ( 150429 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @01:34PM (#4999951) Homepage
      my favourite quotation:

      "The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which; he simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both." - Zen Buddhist Text

  • I forget where I read this, but (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Prong_Thunder ( 572889 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:02AM (#4998732)
    "Dream to be happy. That is the best dream."

  • materialism and success (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:05AM (#4998756)
    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.

    • Re:materialism and success (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Resseguie ( 602552 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @01:12PM (#4999779) Homepage
      The whole way "success" is defined has problems. It's like we're always thinking "If I could just get to _that_ point I'll feel successful." The problem is, _that_ point keeps moving.

      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 [biblegateway.com]. 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 [amazon.com]

      (Tommy Nelson is the same guy that did a series on the Song of Solomon [biblegateway.com] - 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 [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.

      • Atheism values life more than theism (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        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.

  • I know where the money is (Score:5, Funny)

    by Spencerian ( 465343 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:07AM (#4998772) Homepage Journal
    Well, I was selling death sticks and making a handsome profit until some Jedi told me to go home and rethink my life...

    So, maybe I'll become something less profitable, like a sysadmin...

  • Happiness. (Score:4, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:07AM (#4998778) Homepage Journal

    ..is world peace, having a comfortable house, a job you love, a modest paycheque and a loving family.
    Oh yeah, blowjobs... plenty of blowjobs.

  • Do something you like (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rblancarte ( 213492 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:09AM (#4998788) Homepage
    I love all these articles that tell you how to be successful in life/work/love/etc. What it all comes down to is doing something you love. Everyone seems to think that success is measured by the number of zeros before the decimal on your pay check. It is all about enjoying what you do.

    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:
    One of the critical things to being happy is being able to make a living doing something that you love to do, that expresses you to yourself and to others, and that perhaps they don't even have to pay you to do. Ask yourself what you would do if you won the lotto (that is, after you got tired of partying, which I realize might be a while). If I won, I think I would still try to write "beautiful" code and that I would still try to teach others how to do the same.


    One of the things you're trying to figure out in college is what is that thing that you'll love to do, day in, day out. It's hard to do, but try to put aside any preconceived notions you have about a career: the money, the image, the chicks/hunks (whatever floats your boat), etc. Try to ground yourself by thinking out what the activity will be on a daily basis, and whether that activity is something you'll love and feel fulfilled by. Maybe it's being a computer scientist, maybe it's not. If working for the Red Cross, writing a novel, or being a money manager is the way to express yourself, do that.
    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
    • Having read the article in Fast Company and thumbed through the book, itself, at Borders (no thanks to their kiosk- can't someone teach that thing about endcaps and displays?), I would point out that Bronson seems to have sought folks to interview who had decided to forego the zeroes. That, in itself, isn't novel; it's trite. Indeed, platitudes like "do something you love" were counterproductive for some of the subjects, who obsessed over finding the "right" career, one that perfectly balanced the things they thought made them happy, only to find that the reality was pretty far from the quadrant graph. The meat of the book, though, was in their stories of how they ultimately figured it out, the vagueness of the hunches they followed, etc., and the feedback that reinforced their early decisions.
    • These thoughts are very similar to the book Siddhartha [ibiblio.org], by Herman Hesse. Another great story that I recommend is the Stone Cutter [io.com], an ancient Chinese parable about being happy with who you are.

    • Re:Do something you like (Score:4, Funny)

      by happyclam ( 564118 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:49AM (#4999009)
      ...success is measured by the number of zeros before the decimal on your pay check...

      So, am I successful? I have about six zeros followed by a couple other numbers then the decimal.

    • I love all these articles that tell you how to be successful in life/work/love/etc

      is that a standard directory in some linux distro i haven't used yet? can i see your config files?

      btw, agree with everything you said.
    • "Do something you like"
      What if "what I like" is defined as "not having to work"?
      I can't think of anything, off the top of my head, that I would absolutely love to do 8 hours a day, for the rest of my life. Not even sex.
      I have a very low threshold for boredom. Everything bores the crap out of me. Even the fun stuff like gaming and being with my girlfriend.
      Do I need a shrink or something?
      I think it's fairly natural that if you eat nothing but your favorite dish for the rest of your life you'll become nauseous at the mere mention of it pretty soon.
      But maybe I'm weird :|
  • What is this man doing now? He's a cop in East LA.

    He figures: "At long last, they will respect mae authoraetai!"

  • success c/o emerson (Score:5, Insightful)

    by paulbd ( 118132 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:12AM (#4998810) Homepage

    "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

  • Given a choice (Score:5, Insightful)

    by UnidentifiedCoward ( 606296 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:15AM (#4998822)
    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).

    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 :), that is just icing on the cake.

  • What I am doing with my life... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by boris_the_hacker ( 125310 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:16AM (#4998824) Homepage
    ...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.
    • Most people can't achieve wealth, so they make excuses up to why they don't want it any way. But when I look at your statements, you do want wealth, if it comes quick and without personal sacrifice. That's apparent here...

      I am going to work hard enough to pay for the things I would like to do, but not spend my life working

      If I gave you 10 million dollars, you could do all the thing you like to do, and not spend another second working. People who seek wealth are after the same thing, though. However, they choose to sacrifice their ability to do things they want to do now but can't because of time and money constraignt, so they can do everything they want later without worrying about time and money.

      In short, it annoys me when people say, "I don't want wealth. That's for those shallow stiffs who always worry about money and waste their life persuing it. I'm focusing on what matters."

      For me, wealth can give me the following things: the ability to wake up every morning with my wife and do exactly what I want to do, even if that means laying around watching TV for a week or flying to Spain to watch a tomatoe fight. Can I do that now? No. I don't have enough money or time. Can I do that later in life? Yes, if I sacrifice the small things now, like learning about model helicopters racing radio controlled cars. I don't live my life on a week-to-week basis. I live it on a year, 5-year, and 10 year basis, because they only way I will achieve true freedom is through Financial freedom. (You know, that dirty word called wealth which involves having loads of cash in the bank.)

      I would listen to your friends and try and visit the real world. When you have loads stored in the bank, you have real freedom, not the tempory kind where you are limited to playing with the things you can afford on a weeks pay.

  • My real answer (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Daengbo ( 523424 ) <daengbo AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:16AM (#4998825) Homepage Journal
    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?

  • In the words of Max Fischer... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bernz ( 181095 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:16AM (#4998828) Homepage
    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.

  • _Now_ they tell us... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:16AM (#4998829) Journal
    The first assumption to get busted was the notion that certain jobs are inherently cool and that others are uncool. That was a big shift for me. Throughout the 1990s, my basic philosophy was this: Work=Boring, but Work+Speed+Risk=Cool. Speed and risk transformed the experience into something so stimulating, so exciting, so intense, that we began to believe that those qualities defined "good work." Now, betrayed by the reality of economic uncertainty and global instability, we're casting about for what really matters when it comes to work.

    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.

    • 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."

  • I finally figured out what to do with mine (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bitter Cup O Joe ( 146008 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:35AM (#4998914)
    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?"

    • excellent post. You say exactly how I feel, but it only took me a couple of years as a programmer to get there.

      The best tech job I've ever had in terms of satisfaction was doing service calls for a PC shop. The people were happy to see me and happy with my work.

    • Actually, to get things truly to the SEI level 5, would be to create a harmonious working atmosphere where the business process accurately reflected the way which the work is actually done. If I could have a hand in bringing that to the people, I would feel like a hero.

  • Happiness from a sysadmin (Score:5, Funny)

    by ACK!! ( 10229 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:38AM (#4998933) Journal
    I dream of big machines.

    I dream of big machines multi-processor server beasts.

    I fall asleep to the soothing whirr of RAID arrays grinding in the background.

    Endless lines of monotous code fill my head as I down one too many Jolts with the coffee cup still on my desk.

    I hold onto the mouse like a lifeline because it is.

    This is what I always wanted. This is what I got.

    I am not afraid.

  • But maybe if I found out that Einstein's brain [iuma.com] weighed as much as mine, I'd be able to do anything I wanted to, like write a new hit single and top the charts!

  • Don't equate your job with your life (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Helmholtz Coil ( 581131 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:43AM (#4998966) Journal
    I've always kind of thought that it didn't really matter what you did to make a living, it's what you did with your time off that made you who you are.

    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.
  • "The minute you begin to do what you want to do, it's really a different kind of life" -- Buckminster Fuller

    Really. the dotcom bust was the best thing that happened in my life. I did contract work at home in my boxers for a few months, then taught English in Venezela for a half-year, and am now in Jamaica with the Peace Corps as an IT Advisor.

    Just live a good life! Happiness is a way of living, not a goal.
    • "The minute you begin to do what you want to do, it's really a different kind of life" -- Buckminster Fuller
      I love that quote, another I like is: Everything that exists is slowly growing obsolete.

      Life changes, what you felt was success 6 months ago may not be now. It may even be the worst feeling you've had in your life. The only thing you can be succesful in is your happiness. Live your life doing what you want, and hopefully that's to make a little contribution to the world and live by doing it.

      Just live a good life! Happiness is a way of living, not a goal.
      Excellent way of putting it.

  • A mixture of insight and "duh" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Badgerman ( 19207 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:48AM (#4998993)
    A few things struck me about the article:
    • Yes, the people who make a difference should be paid and compensated. However, this rarely happens - the high compensation goes to people in the right positions, not the ones with the dreams and the talent.
    • Yes, we should make sure people find the positions they love. Try telling that to your average manager.
    • He makes an excellent point that money really isn't everything. I've found ways to even make my hobbies pay, but doing them came first. The good news is that with my interests, I can have fun until I want to retire AND make money at it.
    • Smarts definitely are only part of the picture. I'm a firm believer that stupidity and intelligence are not the ends of a scale, but that they can co-exist inside a person.
    • As important as these questions are, American culture (business and otherwise) is NOT supportive of self-introspection and self-transformation. This is a barrier for many.


    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.
  • When I've talked to people about career choice, I say it comes down to three things: Do you love it? Are you good at it? And can you make a living at it?

    The ratio of importance of the three is a personal decision. Many people want to follow the arts, be it singing, painting, writing, or whatever. They love it. They might even find that they're good at it. It's that whole "make a living at it" thing that's the deal breaker for lots of people. There's a whole different group who might love it, but just plain stink at it. On the other hand, there are many people in the world who look *only* at the third one and say "Well, I only need to be as good at it as the next guy, and who cares if I love it, because I love the money I make."

    One way to win this game is to work on your own definition of the first thing. For instance, many geeks out there say "I love video games, therefore my dream job is to hack video games." Well, hey, more power to you if you find your dream job, but you're setting your sights pretty narrow. Personally I define my own "passion" more like this -- "I love existing at the place where people and technology meet." It doesn't matter if you don't really know what I mean, or want to debate it with me -- I know what I mean. And, with that definition working for me, I can be happy coding for the web, or teaching night school, or writing a text book on technology X, or convincing a client to buy a new technology product...and so on.

    I was going to write something in a different post about having to overcome the hurdle of "giving it all up in order to find happiness", but I think that's been done to death. At this point in my life I'm in my mid 30's, a nice house, and a wife who has the luxury of being able to stay at home with our 6month old daughter. With that life comes a variety of responsibilities, both fiscal as well as time (i can't just say "Going to the office to hack for 12 hours, honey! Take care of the baby!"). Do I love the job I have right now? Not as much as I used to. Will I give everything up to go start my own company and risk everything in order to do something I really do love? Nope. I'll just keep meditating on what it is that I really want out of my career and be on the lookout for the close matches.

  • There are a lot of different types of success, many of which contribute to the overall picture and/or interact with each other.

    • Financial Success: For a lot of people, this means a settled life without debts. Or, in other circumstances, debts that are managable (loan for a house etc). This ties in very closely to one's job and income, but can also be more directly related to lifestyle. If you can make ends meet, and still have a little to save (or treat yourself) at the end of the month, you're really not doing that bad.
    • Family Life/Interralation: Not everyone wants marriage and kids, but it's a big factor for many. Such things often tie in to Financial Success... since kids cost money and significant others can either contribute or assist in the debt load. Meeting that "significant other" and keeping the sparks alive is a big point to many people's lives, as is raising children. For others, sometimes all they need is a few good friends, slashdot, and a poodle.
    • Social Life: While oftimes tying into your relationship, this aspect would cover the less intimate interactions in life. It's good to have some close friends whom you can invite over for dinner and coffee, or perhaps somebody to help you through the tough times, when your wife leaves you and takes the poodle...
    • Leisure Activities: This is a part of life a lot of people don't catch onto... getting out and actually doing something. If your job is burning you out, then take some time on your breaks to get out and do something enjoyable. If you're not drowning in debt, then chances are you can afford to got out for dinner, catch a movie, and maybe do some bowling every few weekends.Even cheap fun is better than no fun
    • Possession: Car, house, furniture, TV, an Athlon XP, the latest Radeon, and a copy of Doom3 when it comes out (warning, too much doom3 may conflict with all the above: wife, friends, and job)


    • This is all IMHO of course, and I'm sure somebody can add to this list
  • At 18, I had my life planned. At 42, hardly any of my plans had panned out! I was going nowhere, slowly. I dumped all my plans and just started looking to have fun at work and at home. Now, at 50, I own Fairfax,VA...no, just kidding...I now am making very good money and really enjoy my work. (I really am 50, though.) Everything hasn't always been fun, but having the "fun" goal seems to be working. I think people enjoy working and being around people who are having fun. I try to avoid things that can come back and bite me later on. That usually involves TOO much fun so I guess moderation is a good idea, too. So, enjoy, smartly. :})||
  • Pick an enjoyable job you like.
    There is nothing worse then the dread of going into a place you hate every day.

    The second part is to live the non work life you want. Pursue things that interest you and are fun. Life isn't all work.

  • Happiness you say? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by da_Den_man ( 466270 )
    Satisfaction?

    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.

  • Does it have to be work? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by HelbaSluice ( 634789 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:51AM (#4999022)
    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".

  • smart asses (Score:4, Insightful)

    by avandesande ( 143899 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @11:56AM (#4999058) Journal
    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.
  • I always tell people I want to be a philanthropist when I grow up. Doesn't matter how I get there. :-) Or maybe Hugh Hefner's protoge'.

  • "There are two kinds of tired, there's good tired, and there's bad tired. Ironically enough, bad tired is a day when maybe you won, but you won other people's battles, you lived other people's days, other people's agendas, and there is very little YOU in there. And when you hit the hay at night you toss and turn you don't settle easy. Good tired can be a day that you lost, but you don't have to tell yourself, because you fought your battles, you lived your life, your agenda, you chased your dreams, and when you hit the hay at night, you settle in easy, and you sleep the sleep of the just and you can say, take me away."

    I sleep well.

    Yo Grark
    Canadian Bred with American Buttering
  • if it wasn't for everybody else that works there!
  • ....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.

  • Barbara Holland (Score:5, Insightful)

    by derch ( 184205 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @12:01PM (#4999116)
    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 [twbookmark.com].

    Enjoy it. That's what you should do with your life.
  • ...I've pretty much figured out that I'm tired of programming regular programming. I can do the database-business logic-web or client thing ad infinitum, but it's no fun. OTOH, my last job was in AI, and I loved every second of that.

    I'm considering going back to a local school (Portland State) to pick up an MS in EE focusing on neural nets. I'm also thinking strongly about starting my own company, since there's no bloody AI work here in Portland. (Giving up my friends, my girlfriend, and my support network to relocate is less than optimal.)

    My friends think I'm nuts whenever I talk about starting my own company, but the fact of the matter is that if you can't find the job you want, you have to create it yourself. I still want to get my MS first so that I can learn more about the guts of pattern recognition before I stake out on my own.

    OK, so the reason for this post: how nuts am I, really, to pursue this track? I leave it to the Slashdot crowd to comment. God help me. :)

  • Become yourself (Score:2, Insightful)

    by necrognome ( 236545 )
    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.

  • physical work (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rvr ( 15565 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @12:05PM (#4999150) Homepage
    After sitting behind a desk for fifteen years I decided to see if I could still do physical work. I am working up in northern Canada in the oil patch. The area is a sour gas field and one mistake can kill you. It is hard on an old man and hours are long but there is a satisfaction. I won't do this forever and can always go back to software development. Life is too short and varied for being a one trick pony.


    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.

  • Research supporting article's anecdotal evidence (Score:3, Informative)

    by fruscica ( 637745 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @12:09PM (#4999214) Homepage Journal
    Excerpted from Follow This Path, by The Gallup Organization:

    "[Gallup's] hundreds of studies proved time after time that talent makes a huge impact on profitable growth across every major type of occupation and industry...Superior performers...follow their instincts and thereby identify and develop their specialties. [Given the current modi operandi of education and corporate training] almost always they do this on their own."

    Other key research findings are:

    • Creativity is a better predictor of achievement than intelligence (source: Torrance)

    • Creativity takes shape at the intersection of creativity skills, domain knowledge and intrinsic motivation (source: Amabile)
    So, while the article's research is anecdotal, the core thesis is 100% correct:
    "People thrive by focusing on the question of who they really are -- and connecting that to work that they truly love (and, in so doing, unleashing a productive and creative power that they never imagined)."

  • No mention of family? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02, 2003 @12:12PM (#4999239)
    I'm reading through the replies and can see very little mention of family. Most of replies are about getting the job you love etc..

    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.

    • Not just family (Score:5, Insightful)

      by McSpew ( 316871 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @12:55PM (#4999630)

      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?


      • Hmmm. Are you male?

        I'm female. And one of the things I have been coming to realize of late is that I need to worry less about the people in my life, and more about having meaningful work in my life. I was raised on the "it doesn't matter what you do..." idea, and it turns out that that can be a real subtle way of dismissing women's ambitions.

        After all, if what really matters is the people in your life and not the kind of work you do, it's just as good to be a nurse as a doctor, a secretary as an executive, etc. Heck, you might as well stay home and raise babies.

        So, actually, I've been coming to see the reverse of your conclusion -- that is really does matter what kind of work you do.

        I do wonder if the issue is that men are (still) raised to see their whole identities in their jobs, while women (still) are raised to eschew taking any identity from their jobs. That you had to learn that the people matter, and that I had to learn that the work matters.

    • Re:No mention of family? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by stereoroid ( 234317 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @01:46PM (#5000053) Homepage Journal
      I see you make no mention of your past family, only your new one. Some may say they are one and the same, but that depends on the family. Mine proved themselves thoughtless, inconsiderate and incompetent by the time I was 18, and they didn't argue when I moved out and broke off all contact. I'm still working on a family of my own, and that's where my future lies. People are OK, as long as they're the right people that you associate with by choice, I think...
  • I figure I'll live the fast life of a CS grad, working 80 hour weeks for an outrageously high salary, until at 25 I'm declared an old geezer and pink-slipped in favor of some new graduate who's up on the latest development fads. Then I'll go get an education degree, during which I might actually meet women, and then become a teacher, hopefully to be slightly responsible for a generation of kids who can actually make their computers do what they want, instead of having to pay someone else to make their computer do less and less. Oh, and unlike the rest of the teachers, I'll have my college loans paid off.

  • Someone once asked GBS. . . (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kfg ( 145172 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @12:22PM (#4999361)
    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

  • Poverty Sucks (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tony ( 765 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @12:40PM (#4999516) Journal
    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 [sitka.com] 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.

  • I make and sell soap ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Col. Panic ( 90528 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @12:45PM (#4999550) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • Satisfaction (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gareman ( 618650 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @01:06PM (#4999734) Homepage Journal
    It is true that you should find a profession that brings you satisfaction, but it's also true that we'll all find ourselves in careers, jobs or relationships that we don't like, either because we're on our way to someplace we want to be, circumstances have depressed a relatively good situation or simply that circumstances don't currently allow a planned change.

    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.

  • Experience your own and other cultures (Score:5, Insightful)

    by friday2k ( 205692 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @01:37PM (#4999977)
    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

  • Life styles... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bytesmythe ( 58644 ) <bytesmythe&gmail,com> on Thursday January 02, 2003 @02:00PM (#5000174)
    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.

  • Uh... (Score:4, Funny)

    by cryptogryphon ( 547264 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @02:02PM (#5000185)
    ...try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations, and, finally...

  • Beauty (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BSDevil ( 301159 ) on Thursday January 02, 2003 @02:52PM (#5000622) Journal
    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...

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