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For most people, this is absolutely the most self-destructive advice possible, since they have not learnt how to foster a love for things that meet either their

For most people, this is absolutely the most self-destructive advice possible, since they have not learnt how to foster a love for things that meet either their needs or wants - which is something that you fortunately learnt early on, the easy way, at 15. Give someone without a viable skill set this advice, and watch them go to art school/form a talentless band/become an unemploued actor/rapper. But yeah, fuck soul sucking jobs. I'm so bad at them, and they are so bad for me, I've sworn off them too. "Do you have the ability to throw yourself against the currents of our culture and recognize that you are not the center of your life? The tasks and summonses are the center. Your happiness and your worth are a byproduct of how you engage them. Most of us are egotistical and most of us are self-concerned most of the time, but it’s nonetheless true that life comes to a point only when the self dissolves into some larger task and summons. The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It’s to lose yourself." http://adamconrad.posterous.com/do-what-you-love-or-it-will-destroy-you-or-ho# http://adamconrad.posterous.com/do-what-you-love-or-it-will-...

acconrad 15y ago
Great point! To be fair, my audience is mostly the tech types (hence the post to HN), so I expect that those reading this are not the type to leave and become unemployed actors, but very important nonetheless.
- WalterSear 15y ago
  I agree that the skills and mindset of this forum is certainly a cut above most. But that doesn't mean that it's not full of irrational, wishful thinkers. You know: human beings :) I do, however, have a second objection - it's not enough to enjoy what you do, and be good at what you do - you also have to be lucky. Good thing that being lucky is a skill. "...Newbie drinkers of the 4-hour Kool-Aid don’t seem to get this. They think lifestyle design is a guaranteed path out of their crappy lives in cubicle prisons and the burden of the middle-class life script, mortgage and all. A question I recently answered on Quora very clearly reveals the mental model many people have: Is it hard to build, market and maintain a web app that makes at least $1000 a month? ... You can tell an engineer asked this question even without reading further, because the question asks about how hard the work is. The gambler/marketer version of such questions is always how lucky do you have to be? The engineer asks about effort. The gambler/marketer asks about odds, and picks the game with the most favorable odds that he can find. 2/3 is better than 1/2. If I’d asked the question, I’d have phrased it as: how many apps do you have to publish in order to be fairly sure of having at least one hit that makes $1000 or more a month?" http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/06/02/the-las-vegas-rules-i-the-slightly-malevolent-universe/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/06/02/the-las-vegas-rules-i-t... In other words, perseverance and risk management are essential skills - ones that few people seek serious training and practice in, rather than lip service. A bad job will kill you, but poor risk management will do it faster. People don't just need to hear that making the jump is good - they need to know what to expect when they do, and how to plan accordingly.
  - dkrich 15y ago
    I completely disagree. Luck is important, but something that nobody, with any credible certainty, can put a meaningful number on. Just machine-gunning web apps and smartphone applications into the market until one gets enough traction to earn $1000 is a way to almost guarantee that none ever will. I would argue that for almost any entrepreneurial venture in the software space, odds calculations, and attempting to put forth something with any semblance of prediction beyond a few weeks post-launch is a waste of time.
    - WalterSear 15y ago
      You are doing risk management wrong. To launch a business without determining what a reasonable (or rather, survivale) concept of success would be, without examining your environment to give you at least an order-of-magnitude conception of your the frequency of return on investment you can expect, and determining whether your business model can survive long enough to be self-perpetuating isn't foolhardy: it's stupid. It doesn't take rocket science skill to be realistic, and to anticipate known unknowns. You don't even need the complicated parts of excel.
DavidSJ 15y ago
For most people, this is absolutely the most self-destructive advice possible, since they have not learnt how to foster a love for things that meet either their needs or wants - which is something that you fortunately learnt early on, the easy way, at 15. This is one reason people should be allowed to spend their childhoods doing what they love rather than following someone else's curriculum for them. By the time they have to fend for themselves, they'll have a chance at having found something they love and which pays the bills.
- Confusion 15y ago
  This assumes that, when left to their own devices, kids will stumble upon things they love. This is false, because kids mostly don't know where to look, don't have any incentive to look and have the attention span of a goldfish. You are thinking what it would have been like for you and the error you are making is forgetting that most kids are not like you were. Most kids don't end up as adults on Hacker News. When left alone, without being introduced to a wide variety of subjects, most kids would play games on the street with their friends, never take up a book and certainly never attempt to organize anything bigger than the next match against the kids of the next neighbourhood.

acconrad 15y ago

Great point! To be fair, my audience is mostly the tech types (hence the post to HN), so I expect that those reading this are not the type to leave and become unemployed actors, but very important nonetheless.

WalterSear 15y ago
I agree that the skills and mindset of this forum is certainly a cut above most. But that doesn't mean that it's not full of irrational, wishful thinkers. You know: human beings :) I do, however, have a second objection - it's not enough to enjoy what you do, and be good at what you do - you also have to be lucky. Good thing that being lucky is a skill. "...Newbie drinkers of the 4-hour Kool-Aid don’t seem to get this. They think lifestyle design is a guaranteed path out of their crappy lives in cubicle prisons and the burden of the middle-class life script, mortgage and all. A question I recently answered on Quora very clearly reveals the mental model many people have: Is it hard to build, market and maintain a web app that makes at least $1000 a month? ... You can tell an engineer asked this question even without reading further, because the question asks about how hard the work is. The gambler/marketer version of such questions is always how lucky do you have to be? The engineer asks about effort. The gambler/marketer asks about odds, and picks the game with the most favorable odds that he can find. 2/3 is better than 1/2. If I’d asked the question, I’d have phrased it as: how many apps do you have to publish in order to be fairly sure of having at least one hit that makes $1000 or more a month?" http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/06/02/the-las-vegas-rules-i-the-slightly-malevolent-universe/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/06/02/the-las-vegas-rules-i-t... In other words, perseverance and risk management are essential skills - ones that few people seek serious training and practice in, rather than lip service. A bad job will kill you, but poor risk management will do it faster. People don't just need to hear that making the jump is good - they need to know what to expect when they do, and how to plan accordingly.
- dkrich 15y ago
  I completely disagree. Luck is important, but something that nobody, with any credible certainty, can put a meaningful number on. Just machine-gunning web apps and smartphone applications into the market until one gets enough traction to earn $1000 is a way to almost guarantee that none ever will. I would argue that for almost any entrepreneurial venture in the software space, odds calculations, and attempting to put forth something with any semblance of prediction beyond a few weeks post-launch is a waste of time.
  - WalterSear 15y ago
    You are doing risk management wrong. To launch a business without determining what a reasonable (or rather, survivale) concept of success would be, without examining your environment to give you at least an order-of-magnitude conception of your the frequency of return on investment you can expect, and determining whether your business model can survive long enough to be self-perpetuating isn't foolhardy: it's stupid. It doesn't take rocket science skill to be realistic, and to anticipate known unknowns. You don't even need the complicated parts of excel.

DavidSJ 15y ago

Confusion 15y ago
This assumes that, when left to their own devices, kids will stumble upon things they love. This is false, because kids mostly don't know where to look, don't have any incentive to look and have the attention span of a goldfish. You are thinking what it would have been like for you and the error you are making is forgetting that most kids are not like you were. Most kids don't end up as adults on Hacker News. When left alone, without being introduced to a wide variety of subjects, most kids would play games on the street with their friends, never take up a book and certainly never attempt to organize anything bigger than the next match against the kids of the next neighbourhood.