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> Aligning your personal goals with your company's mission can be a game-changer in achieving both professional success and personal fulfillment. That’s a fair

> Aligning your personal goals with your company's mission can be a game-changer in achieving both professional success and personal fulfillment. That’s a fairly dangerous way of doing thing in my experience. Unless it’s your company, you have very little say in what the company actually does. Generally speaking, I advocate keeping a sane distance between what you do for a living and the rest of your life. You are not defined by the company that pays you. Find a job which helps you achieve what you want to achieve, work honestly and leave work at work.

KolenCh 2y ago
Not an expert here, so I'll quote one from the highlights I have reading the following book: “Harsh as this sounds, if you’re not in the right job—a job that is moving you toward where you want to be in life—then you’re wasting almost all the time you’re spending at work.” “First, “you should do what you love” means finding work that “matches well with your expertise, your creative thinking skills, and your strongest intrinsic motivations.” Intrinsic motivation means liking the substance of the work for its own sake. The second part, “you should love what you do,” means “finding a work environment that will allow you to retain that intrinsic motivational focus, while supporting your exploration of new ideas.” Excerpt From 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think Laura Vanderkam
- jimbokun 2y ago
  I suspect there are far too few jobs meeting that description relative to the number of people needing employment.
  - KolenCh 2y ago
    Laura anticipated that response: “Ferriss downplays the idea of dream jobs. As he writes, “For most people . . . the perfect job is the one that takes the least time. The vast majority of people will never find a job that can be an unending source of fulfillment, so that is not the goal here; to free time and automate income is.” And then she further elaborate from there, discussing how to create the right job, bridging the gap between the ideal and the reality. Here's the 3 levels of changes to do that: “... If the answer is “no” to any of these four questions, what can I change? In the next week? In the next year? Can I create the right job within my organization? Another organization? Or will I need to go out on my own?” I know we're not in a book club, and I, even the author, does not have to ultimate answer. But as she argued, there are things we can have more meaningful/fulfilling life from our 168 hours a week and it is not as pessimistic as it seems. I invite you to give the book a chance. Excerpt From 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think Laura Vanderkam
- RandomThoughts3 2y ago
  Don’t take it wrongly but "you should do what you love or your life is meaningless" is a very bourgeois idea. I personally very much enjoy what my salary allows me to do despite actively disagreeing with most (but not all) of what the company I work for does. My role has an overall positive but fairly minute impact on this trajectory and I’m fine with that. I’m not defined by my work. I have plenty of space outside of my job to actually actively advocate for things I genuinely care about without mingling the two.
  - KolenCh 2y ago
    > Don’t take it wrongly but "you should do what you love or your life is meaningless" is a very bourgeois idea. I agree with you but it is not what Laura said or mean. She said, > “Harsh as this sounds, if you’re not in the right job—a job that is moving you toward where you want to be in life—then you’re wasting almost all the time you’re spending at work.” I'd like to point out 2 things: - Perhaps it is understood without saying: there's no "the right way" here, as different people have different utility function. The corollary is that the alternative of what Laura is proposing can be equally fulfilling or more. - Sticking to Laura's proposition then, is that you only have 168 hours a week. Work constitute to 30-50 or more hours, a significant chunk of your total amount. So, that's what "you’re wasting almost all the time you’re spending at work" means. Note that she's not saying this defines the meaning of your life. She's saying plainly that majority of your quota (hours) is spent towards work, if those amount of time is not spent towards "moving you toward where you want to be", then those time is counted as wasted, in terms of "moving you toward where you want to be". In order words, you need to be moving faster in the remaining amount of time you have elsewhere to compensate, which is harder. (Compare to another hypothetical you that can "moving you toward where you want to be" in both portions of your time, which would almost surely make more progress.) In your case, you mentioned "actively disagreeing with most (but not all) of what the company I work for does". Having read Laura's book, I don't think in her definition yours must be "wasting almost all the time you’re spending at work". Because as far as I understand her book, if what you're spending time doing at work is, for example, building up a skill you want to build, or solving problems you like to solve, then this constitute towards "moving you toward where you want to be". The more dangerous situation Laura warned against is something like the majority of the time spent at work, say 20+ hours, are spent towards meaningless things that don't advances you, such as attending many meetings you are not needed there, performing a duty that is not your duty and not something you want to develop a skill in, etc. I.e. what "advances you" is defined by you, but the author is actively guiding the readers to seek these out and defines it clearly.
foobarchu 2y ago
My interpretation of this was that it's really nice to believe in the companies mission, and even nicer if your own goals happen to match it. This probably isn't possible at most generic "tech" companies, but for a lot of more domain-specific company it totally is without making your a stooge.
sgarland 2y ago
> You are not defined by the company that pays you. Find a job which helps you achieve what you want to achieve, work honestly and leave work at work. I am genuinely _fascinated_ with RDBMS. I tinker with them in my free time. I watch syscalls during reads and writes to better understand what’s happening. I test theories when someone asserts “Postgres is better at X than MySQL” to see if they’re correct. The fact that I get paid quite well to run DBs is an absolute dream.
- freilanzer 2y ago
  I wish I had this kind of fascination in my life.
- Bagged2347 2y ago
  This is what I aspire to. Work will always be work, but if my interests could align at least somewhat with my day job, then acknowledging that I have to spend so much of my time working would be so much more tolerable. Happy to hear it's achievable.
  - sgarland 2y ago
    ADHD and/or autism helps quite a bit. Devastating in other areas of life, of course, but hey, trade-offs.

KolenCh 2y ago

Not an expert here, so I'll quote one from the highlights I have reading the following book: “Harsh as this sounds, if you’re not in the right job—a job that is moving you toward where you want to be in life—then you’re wasting almost all the time you’re spending at work.” “First, “you should do what you love” means finding work that “matches well with your expertise, your creative thinking skills, and your strongest intrinsic motivations.” Intrinsic motivation means liking the substance of the work for its own sake. The second part, “you should love what you do,” means “finding a work environment that will allow you to retain that intrinsic motivational focus, while supporting your exploration of new ideas.” Excerpt From 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think Laura Vanderkam

jimbokun 2y ago
I suspect there are far too few jobs meeting that description relative to the number of people needing employment.
- KolenCh 2y ago
  Laura anticipated that response: “Ferriss downplays the idea of dream jobs. As he writes, “For most people . . . the perfect job is the one that takes the least time. The vast majority of people will never find a job that can be an unending source of fulfillment, so that is not the goal here; to free time and automate income is.” And then she further elaborate from there, discussing how to create the right job, bridging the gap between the ideal and the reality. Here's the 3 levels of changes to do that: “... If the answer is “no” to any of these four questions, what can I change? In the next week? In the next year? Can I create the right job within my organization? Another organization? Or will I need to go out on my own?” I know we're not in a book club, and I, even the author, does not have to ultimate answer. But as she argued, there are things we can have more meaningful/fulfilling life from our 168 hours a week and it is not as pessimistic as it seems. I invite you to give the book a chance. Excerpt From 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think Laura Vanderkam
RandomThoughts3 2y ago
Don’t take it wrongly but "you should do what you love or your life is meaningless" is a very bourgeois idea. I personally very much enjoy what my salary allows me to do despite actively disagreeing with most (but not all) of what the company I work for does. My role has an overall positive but fairly minute impact on this trajectory and I’m fine with that. I’m not defined by my work. I have plenty of space outside of my job to actually actively advocate for things I genuinely care about without mingling the two.
- KolenCh 2y ago
  > Don’t take it wrongly but "you should do what you love or your life is meaningless" is a very bourgeois idea. I agree with you but it is not what Laura said or mean. She said, > “Harsh as this sounds, if you’re not in the right job—a job that is moving you toward where you want to be in life—then you’re wasting almost all the time you’re spending at work.” I'd like to point out 2 things: - Perhaps it is understood without saying: there's no "the right way" here, as different people have different utility function. The corollary is that the alternative of what Laura is proposing can be equally fulfilling or more. - Sticking to Laura's proposition then, is that you only have 168 hours a week. Work constitute to 30-50 or more hours, a significant chunk of your total amount. So, that's what "you’re wasting almost all the time you’re spending at work" means. Note that she's not saying this defines the meaning of your life. She's saying plainly that majority of your quota (hours) is spent towards work, if those amount of time is not spent towards "moving you toward where you want to be", then those time is counted as wasted, in terms of "moving you toward where you want to be". In order words, you need to be moving faster in the remaining amount of time you have elsewhere to compensate, which is harder. (Compare to another hypothetical you that can "moving you toward where you want to be" in both portions of your time, which would almost surely make more progress.) In your case, you mentioned "actively disagreeing with most (but not all) of what the company I work for does". Having read Laura's book, I don't think in her definition yours must be "wasting almost all the time you’re spending at work". Because as far as I understand her book, if what you're spending time doing at work is, for example, building up a skill you want to build, or solving problems you like to solve, then this constitute towards "moving you toward where you want to be". The more dangerous situation Laura warned against is something like the majority of the time spent at work, say 20+ hours, are spent towards meaningless things that don't advances you, such as attending many meetings you are not needed there, performing a duty that is not your duty and not something you want to develop a skill in, etc. I.e. what "advances you" is defined by you, but the author is actively guiding the readers to seek these out and defines it clearly.

foobarchu 2y ago

My interpretation of this was that it's really nice to believe in the companies mission, and even nicer if your own goals happen to match it. This probably isn't possible at most generic "tech" companies, but for a lot of more domain-specific company it totally is without making your a stooge.

sgarland 2y ago

> You are not defined by the company that pays you. Find a job which helps you achieve what you want to achieve, work honestly and leave work at work. I am genuinely _fascinated_ with RDBMS. I tinker with them in my free time. I watch syscalls during reads and writes to better understand what’s happening. I test theories when someone asserts “Postgres is better at X than MySQL” to see if they’re correct. The fact that I get paid quite well to run DBs is an absolute dream.

freilanzer 2y ago
I wish I had this kind of fascination in my life.
Bagged2347 2y ago
This is what I aspire to. Work will always be work, but if my interests could align at least somewhat with my day job, then acknowledging that I have to spend so much of my time working would be so much more tolerable. Happy to hear it's achievable.
- sgarland 2y ago
  ADHD and/or autism helps quite a bit. Devastating in other areas of life, of course, but hey, trade-offs.