<story><title>People Simply Empty Out (1986)</title><url>http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/10/people-simply-empty-out.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>blunte</author><text>Sometimes I do wonder... how many people I see with regular jobs feel like they are using 10% of their abilities at those jobs?  At this very moment I am making an effort to re-enter the corporate world... studying Python or Ruby or Elixir any of the other 5 languages I have used in the last 10 years to convince a company that I can do their work.  But inside, I know I&amp;#x27;m doing it 99% for the money.  It&amp;#x27;s only because I didn&amp;#x27;t run the gauntlet in the past and strike out on my dreams with 150% effort (I tried once, at probably 90% effort.  I failed.)&lt;p&gt;I had a friend and consulting boss who once told me, &amp;quot;I don&amp;#x27;t care what work I do; it&amp;#x27;s just a day job, and it&amp;#x27;s money.&amp;quot;  And as with people who can happily do hookup after hookup on Tinder, I sometimes wish I were like them.  But when you really care about shit, it ties you up.  And when the stuff you care about is just one or two cogs in a big machine that isn&amp;#x27;t really worth supporting, you die slowly for a wage.&lt;p&gt;My advice to young people (those of you who are in your first 5 years of employment) is to realize now that unless you want to become a business owner or want to do 12+ years of good effort in one of the big 5 (4?) consulting firms, you should just never grow your personal cost of living and instead focus on doing stuff you love - money be damned.  You may just find yourself in the enviable position where doing the thing you loved resulted in a windfall (Google bought you), or at least funds you 5+k&amp;#x2F;mo while you travel the many other awesome parts of the world which cost way less than the US and western Europe.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spyckie2</author><text>From the point of view of the individual, do what you love.&lt;p&gt;From the point of view of the working world, do what people pay for.&lt;p&gt;From the point of view of simple optimization with no bias, find the ideal intersection of both.&lt;p&gt;From the point of view of taking it easy in life, find the highest value, lowest energy activity.&lt;p&gt;From the point of view of working on impossible problems that you find fulfillment, put yourself in situations that are constantly above your capacity and fight for every step of the way.&lt;p&gt;Or, just do what you think is best according to what you know, no need for &amp;quot;absolute best&amp;quot; ways to approach life.&lt;p&gt;But while doing that, remember to be happy with what you have at present.</text></comment>
<story><title>People Simply Empty Out (1986)</title><url>http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/10/people-simply-empty-out.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>blunte</author><text>Sometimes I do wonder... how many people I see with regular jobs feel like they are using 10% of their abilities at those jobs?  At this very moment I am making an effort to re-enter the corporate world... studying Python or Ruby or Elixir any of the other 5 languages I have used in the last 10 years to convince a company that I can do their work.  But inside, I know I&amp;#x27;m doing it 99% for the money.  It&amp;#x27;s only because I didn&amp;#x27;t run the gauntlet in the past and strike out on my dreams with 150% effort (I tried once, at probably 90% effort.  I failed.)&lt;p&gt;I had a friend and consulting boss who once told me, &amp;quot;I don&amp;#x27;t care what work I do; it&amp;#x27;s just a day job, and it&amp;#x27;s money.&amp;quot;  And as with people who can happily do hookup after hookup on Tinder, I sometimes wish I were like them.  But when you really care about shit, it ties you up.  And when the stuff you care about is just one or two cogs in a big machine that isn&amp;#x27;t really worth supporting, you die slowly for a wage.&lt;p&gt;My advice to young people (those of you who are in your first 5 years of employment) is to realize now that unless you want to become a business owner or want to do 12+ years of good effort in one of the big 5 (4?) consulting firms, you should just never grow your personal cost of living and instead focus on doing stuff you love - money be damned.  You may just find yourself in the enviable position where doing the thing you loved resulted in a windfall (Google bought you), or at least funds you 5+k&amp;#x2F;mo while you travel the many other awesome parts of the world which cost way less than the US and western Europe.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>toomanybeersies</author><text>I like working. It doesn&amp;#x27;t need to be on a project of passion either, I enjoy digging holes as a labourer just as much as I enjoy working on an interesting engineering problem. As long as it&amp;#x27;s useful work, I&amp;#x27;m reasonably happy. The worst I&amp;#x27;ve ever felt in a job is working on doomed or failed projects, where none of your work ever comes to light. It&amp;#x27;s a waste of time and a waste of my life.&lt;p&gt;I wouldn&amp;#x27;t say that I live to work, and I definitely need my breaks, but I haven&amp;#x27;t been without a job for more than 2 months since I was 15. If I made a windfall, I couldn&amp;#x27;t quit my job and travel the world for a decade, I&amp;#x27;d go crazy. On the other hand, I have some friends who simply don&amp;#x27;t like working. They can&amp;#x27;t hold down a job for more than 6 months, and just bounce around doing whatever odd jobs they find.</text></comment>