What should I do with my life?(fastcompany.com)
fastcompany.com
What should I do with my life?
http://www.fastcompany.com/node/45909/print
4 comments
You think that you'll make lots of money and get back to your dream in 2-3 years but you'd be wrong. You'll be dead in 2-3 years. Perhaps not physically but this person right now that is you -- he will no longer exist, only someone who has memories of being you.
How are the two different? You might as well say that I will be dead in the next minute. What makes me is not this instant, this second, is the core me, the core ideas, perspectives, themes, aims.
This article has been sitting on my hard drive for a long time now, since I first read it and felt that I'd have to reread it many times over the years... My favorite part:
"Keeping your doors open" is a trap. It's an excuse to stay uninvolved. I call the people who have the hardest time closing doors Phi Beta Slackers. They hop between esteemed grad schools, fat corporate gigs, and prestigious fellowships, looking as if they have their act together but still feeling like observers, feeling as if they haven't come close to living up to their potential.
"Keeping your doors open" is a trap. It's an excuse to stay uninvolved. I call the people who have the hardest time closing doors Phi Beta Slackers. They hop between esteemed grad schools, fat corporate gigs, and prestigious fellowships, looking as if they have their act together but still feeling like observers, feeling as if they haven't come close to living up to their potential.
A great book for when people have enough financial backup to explore a bit. Nowadays with people's 401k down 40% and underwater in their house, they can't afford to take a year off to 'figure life out'
Figuring life out doesn't have to take money.
You only get what Mary Oliver calls "your one wild and precious life." So if living it well means giving up the 401k, walking away from the house and filing bankruptcy, then that's a valid choice.
[edit] I keep that poem on my desktop so I can read the last two lines every day and it is slowly coming to influence the decisions I make:
"Tell me what is it you plan to do With your one wild and precious life?"
You only get what Mary Oliver calls "your one wild and precious life." So if living it well means giving up the 401k, walking away from the house and filing bankruptcy, then that's a valid choice.
[edit] I keep that poem on my desktop so I can read the last two lines every day and it is slowly coming to influence the decisions I make:
"Tell me what is it you plan to do With your one wild and precious life?"
His researched book "What should I do with my life?" is interesting, in a college alumni notes kind of way, for picking up and opening to a random page and reading one of the 70 profiles (which are categorized). It's a great coffee table book for kindling conversations.
I liked the profile of the woman who was a top toner sales executive.