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> When I look back at my projects and writings that made the biggest impact in my career, they are never the ones that I built for the express purpose of accomp

> When I look back at my projects and writings that made the biggest impact in my career, they are never the ones that I built for the express purpose of accomplishing one of the many checkpoints I was naively chasing. Instead, they’re almost always borne out of me following through on what’s personally interesting to me This really hit home for me. My most significant memories are of the things I did out of passion and interest and not because "I had" to do them. In other words, it's about being authentic vs trying to reach some socially prescribed ideal of success in order to prove yourself.

borroka 4y ago
There are many more nuances than those presented. This is a personal example, but there are many such cases: I used to do a job, academic research, that I loved, but it was poorly paid. I switched to a very lucrative job, which I don't hate, I don't love, but it is a job as it is understood when people say, "I have a job." But the money from "the job" allows me to have a much easier life in terms of money, with less stress that I don't want (paying rent, what if I have an emergency that requires dollars) and with room for the many passions I have. Guess what, I can also live without doing research; I did research on my own for a while, even published a couple of papers, which was both meritorious and useless at the same time, but I eventually devoted my creativity to other activities that are now more fulfilling than research.