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do whatever to make money first, use that money to do what you love. 'follow your dream' is too risky for most of us and might be misleading for most young peo
by synergy20 3y ago
do whatever to make money first, use that money to do what you love.
'follow your dream' is too risky for most of us and might be misleading for most young people in my opinion.
make a living first, and never forget your dream in the process
- tayo42 3y agoCal Newport has a whole book about this. So good they can't ignore you. The idea is what you pointed out, and you'll be happier if you just find something to be good at. There's more nuance in the book
- jhatemyjob 3y agoDitto. I wish I found Cal's writings earlier in my life. I followed the line of thinking in OP for 5 years. Since I was following my "passion", I wasn't making that much money and thus was obsessing over my career day in and day out. Then at one point I decided to sell my soul to big tech. After some time, I realized that I actually don't care about my career that much. Ultimately all I want is to increase my hourly rate as much as possible. Making money is a problem to be solved and minimized, not something to be passionate about
- ornornor 3y agoI see the pragmatism of this, but can’t reconcile the cognitive dissonance. I personally hate when quality is a nice to have rather than a first class citizen because it results in so much more misery, stress, burnout, micromanagement that is 100% avoidable. By working someplace that (dys)functions that way, I feel like I’m enabling and contributing to ruining everyone else’s lives… and that makes me feel worthless, I can’t do it. I see the rationale reason for doing it the way you do it, but I don’t seem able to do it myself.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jhatemyjob 3y agoYeah maybe you're right, I'm just rationalizing it. But money is sooooo important. I feel like everyone should give big tech a shot, even if it's for a few months. You get paid so much and the expectations are so low at the beginning. You can easily coast during that 6-month trial period and spend most of your time working on your own stuff. If it's remote, and you structure your time right, it's basically free money
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- badpun 3y agoAlso, be aware that most people don't have a dream or a thing they love. The message about having a dream and "doing what you love" is so prevalent in the US culture, that the large number of people whom it does not pertain think that there's something wrong with them, and start essentially force themselves to have a passion (which is, obviously, not how it works).
- jonasdegendt 3y agoYour dreams can be any passion or hobby, if it's a relatively fleeting one that's fine too. I restored a motorcycle last year, it was a great outlet, but I wasn't actually very into riding it in the end and dropped it. Onto the next one. You like fine dining and look forward to a new restaurant every week? That's the equivalent of a dream to some people. I think you're right in the sense that this U.S. notion of "exceptionalism" is also expected of individuals on both a professional and personal level, and "never forget your dreams" can really be reduced to "work to live, not live to work".
- badpun 3y ago> You like fine dining and look forward to a new restaurant every week? That's the equivalent of a dream to some people. Well, then my "dream" is to play MtG and lay in bed reading random stuff on the Internet. Seems like too broad of a definition :)
- em-bee 3y agowho is to judge? it is the parents and societies job to develop your ambitions. if you don't have any then that's not your failure, but ours.