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Why you can't be anything you want to be

141 points by seanjohnson 14y ago

heathlilley 14y ago
This is similar to a realization I had a few years ago about my own career and training. I got it in my head that my company should provide training to use the newest technologies for their benefit. It only took a few years of the "it's not broken so don't fix it" culture to realize they don't care how it works, as long as it works. And that I am responsible for my own growth. The cost is using my own free time and resources, the value (aside from learning) is that I get to choose what I will learn, hello JQuery/Ruby/MongoDB/Heroku. TLDR: Growing on your own is more fun and enriching than being dependent on others.
- paulhauggis 14y ago
  This may be true. But, if you have a site running with older technology, I wouldn't want to use new technology just for the sake of using new technology. When something works, why take the risk? Especially if it involves money.
  - heathlilley 14y ago
    I agree, that is why it's up to the developer to improve their skills if they don't want to keep writing Action classes and POJO JDBC classes for that legacy Struts 1.1 webapp.
Link- 14y ago
Exactly the observations I (and I'm sure many others) have been trying to formulate for the past few years and preaching offline, but much better organized and well said by Sean Johnson.. Beautifully written! Kudos for being spot on!
lmm 14y ago
I think "you must provide value" cuts both ways. Don't work for an employer who isn't providing you with value. Recognise that there will always be tradeoffs between your happiness at work and your pay, in both directions; know how much value you place on your own time, or on gaining experience, and act accordingly.
jsiarto 14y ago
This. We need to stop sugar-coating things in this world. I'm an adjunct at a major Big Ten school and I see this all time with my students. The mentality is that if I just have enough education, the jobs will be waiting (law students anyone?) -- yet these sames students make little to know effort in school to do anything other than show up (occasionally) and squeak by with their 3.0. The parents of my generation (born in 1984) have babied and protected their children to a fault. Reality is not always pleasant and life isn't fair--instead of telling our kids they can be anything, we need to give them the tools to choose marketable and worthwhile careers. Unfortunately, we can't all be astronauts and veterinarians.
- debacle 14y ago
  For the parents of our generation, all you really needed to do was show up and squeak by with a 3.0. School was harder, college was harder, and there were more opportunities. We need to stop pretending that there is one root cause to this problem. The real cause is the degradation in the quality of the American populace.
  - mechanical_fish 14y ago
    Ah, so that's why 90% of my colleagues with Ph.D.s in physics didn't get jobs as professors of physics. They just weren't of a high-enough quality. If only they'd worked 35% harder, the universities would have created physicist jobs for everyone. Yeah, that's how economics works! You might want to go back to the part about "opportunities".
- teach 14y ago
  I agree wholeheartedly. My wife is an associate professor at a top-10 CS school (though she's not in the CS department). I wish we could FORCE all the incoming freshmen to read this essay. And read it again every semester.
- randomdata 14y ago
  > The mentality is that if I just have enough education, the jobs will be waiting (law students anyone?) Anyone who has this mentality is not following their dreams, they are following the crowd. Crowd-followers rarely do find success. That is what stood out to me in the article. The people who are being written about are not really doing what they want to do, they are doing what is expected of them (go to college and then get a good job). I wonder if the results would be different if these people struck their own path?
spressto 14y ago
Great points. The only nuance I'd add is that, while it may be a little unfair, the truth is that SOME people can be whatever they want to be. They possess the smarts, confidence, resources, and whatever to barrel through that, with a little bit of luck thrown in they can get that crazy competitive job that combines money and fulfillment perfectly or have enough financial runway to keep fighting until their passion project works. But many can't. And they get burned when the feel good 'follow your dreams' advice can't be realized because of market dynamics and the fact that they lack many of the fundamentals that your article rightly shows are key.
bluetidepro 14y ago
Personally, as an optimist, I don't like this because I feel like there is always an exception to the rule. Don't get me wrong, this article has good points, in general, but I just don't like the pessimistic view of the title -- "Why you can't be anything you want to be."
- thwarted 14y ago
  If the rule is everyone can be what they want to be, that doesn't bode well for those that end up as the exceptions. And as you say, there are always exceptions.
  - bluetidepro 14y ago
    That is very true, but I also see it as being the lesser of two evils. I, personally, would much rather like the idea that if I work towards something with goals, hard-work, etc. that I can be the rule. Instead of just giving up before even trying because "I think I'll always just be an exception". If you follow what I mean? I guess it's somewhat of a catch 22.
Swizec 14y ago
There is a quote from a Mad Men episode: "Not every ballerina can grow up to be the prima ballerina" It feels relevant.
- shawndumas 14y ago
  perhaps a more relevant sentiment would be, 'not every aspiring ballerina can make a living as a ballerina'.
  - ricardobeat 14y ago
    I don't think this one rings as true as the parent.
- lrs 14y ago
  Assuming you're referring to Marie's scolding of Megan, I think the quote is closer to "Not every little girl gets to do what she wants - the world could not support that many ballerinas." Which is even closer to what this article is saying.
_delirium 14y ago
This makes some sense, but honestly I'm not seeing much new in these endless repetitions of the same debate. It goes back to at least the 1960s and the debate over the "Me generation" [1]. Probably earlier. There's a tension between raising armies of cogs-in-the-machine on the one hand, and beautiful butterflies on the other, and some orthogonal other questions besides. Some of it also interacts with politics, and I'm not sure I accept all the premises. For example, from my current vantage point in Denmark, society does generally believe that you are entitled to at least a basic living (food/shelter/healthcare), even if not a great one. Then it becomes a question of what you wish to do above that, in both economic and non-economic senses. One presumably wishes to both earn more money than the absolute minimum, but also to contribute to society beyond the absolute minimum; the two desires may or may not be aligned, and there are many paths to doing either/both. In other countries (notably the USA), political views are different on that question. In my own personal opinion I do think it is, in part, "a moral or systematic failure on the part of society" that the situation in the USA is as it is, but that's sort of its own debate (I'm not really anti-market, as I feel they're useful and in any case inevitable, but I don't necessarily think that maket valuation is everything). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_generation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_generation
- teach 14y ago
  You clearly don't work with college-aged students in the United States if you think the material in this essay is old hat. Regardless of what's been written or how often, the vast majority of students entering top universities today are deluded.
- njharman 14y ago
  > society does generally believe that you are entitled to at least a basic living (food/shelter/healthcare) That and the OA "The market doesn’t care what you love" are why I'm very socialist very anti the attitude/mantra "free market solves everything!!!". Markets should not dictate how our society operates. Society should not value efficiency and profit over all else. Society should provide everyone with minimum food/shelter/health/education and let them choose what else to do. Whether that's make assloads of money as investment banker or play drums at love ins.
dave_sullivan 14y ago
I generally agree with the points of the article. I think a better title would be "What you need to know to be anything you want to be". The economy is complex enough to provide room in just about any field someone would want to enter--but there is no golden ticket piece of paper that will open the door for you. No one wants to grow up to put plastic on the end of shoelaces, but many are not adaptable so they try to beat a dead horse even though technology has supplanted their job (a bad move as you rightly point out). My point being, don't swing too far in the direction of "Life sucks, deal with it!" because that's not quite true either.
- dgreensp 14y ago
  Yes, I also agree with the advice but not the conclusion. I suspect the only people in their 30s who can honestly say they spent their entire 20s in full-time pursuit of a career in their passion and got nowhere are PhD graduates. This says more about PhDs and mistaken beliefs surrounding them than anything else. I feel like I had more options for what to be (i.e. career) than I was aware of, it's just the "how" that was left out.
  - Crake 14y ago
    That and people who did art in undergrad. I know quite a few that still live with their parents and/or work for close to minimum wage.
__abc 14y ago
Anybody can be anything they want to be. It just takes more work, time, commitment, and tenacity than people realize.
- randomdata 14y ago
  I somehow doubt the people in rural Africa struggle because they just aren't working hard enough or aren't committed enough to reaching the "American dream". Though I do agree that some people miss out on opportunities as a result of not taking advantage of those qualities.
  - ricardobeat 14y ago
    The gist still stands. There are likely many succesful people from the poorest countries who only achieved success because they believed and worked harder than anyone else. The threshold is just much higher.
    - sopooneo 14y ago
      So is this extreme hard work a sufficient condition, or just a necessary one?
      - __abc 14y ago
        I am by no means implying it takes "extreme" hard work. I'm merely stating that on average it takes more work then people realize.
ScottBurson 14y ago
I don't think the author proves his thesis at all. All he ahows is that being whatever you want to be is going to take effort -- you're going to have to put your heart into it. It's not just a matter of sitting around and waiting for it. Did anyone really think it was? Is anyone really saying, "You can be anything you want to be -- just sit around and wait for it to show up"? If so, that certainly would be a lie, but that's not the message I hear being said and it's certainly not the message I like to send. If your dream is, to take a recently topical example, to compete in the Olympics, do you really think you can get there just by sitting in front of the TV thinking "I want to be in the Olympics"? Yeah, you might wind up in the Olympics as an usher :-) But if you want to compete as an athlete, you're going to have to work your ass off. Is there really anyone who doesn't know this??? Or, let's take the teacher example. If you dream of being a great teacher who truly inspires students to learn, you can absolutely have that. Maybe it will take the usual form of teaching in a school, or maybe you'll do something different, like Sal Khan. Either way, if you aspire to be a great teacher and you do the work required to become that, you will be able to do that and get paid for it somehow. There may be too many ordinary teachers, but there are never enough great ones. That's true in any area. On the other hand, if all you aspire to is mediocrity, that's not a passion -- it's the absence of a passion. If the only thoughts you have about what you want to be are, "yeah, it would be nice to be X", then I absolutely agree with the author: you're unlikely to get that. But it doesn't mean you can't; it just means you won't.
- nostromo 14y ago
  Most people can never compete in the Olympics. Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt have physical characteristics that you and I do not have. For most Olympic sports this is the case. Why pretend otherwise? Acknowledging it doesn't mean you and I can't do great things in life. It just means there are particular great things that we will never be able to do, and should not waste our time trying to do.
  - ricardobeat 14y ago
    Have you seen that guy competing with prosthetic legs? He completely blows your argument. He is at the bottom of the scale on "phisically disadvantaged". Olympic athletes are not super heros. There are the exceptions, but 95% of them are "normal" people who just work really hard. Maybe you can't be the greatest sprinter ever (who knows?) but you could make it to the olympics. The brazilian judo gold winner was just a very poor girl with a wish 4 years ago.
ctdonath 14y ago
I was just discussing the "do whatever you want" last night. "Want" is not picking a warm-fuzzy-inducing phrase off a list because you feel compelled to make a choice. "Want" is "get the he11 out of my way" compulsive drive which permeates your being. To many faced with "you can be whatever you want" don't want to do anything; all they "want" is satisfaction of basic urges and amusements. Pressured to attend college or get a job, they perceive "do whatever you want" as picking a marginally satisfying term from a menu, and dutifully showing up for class and assuming a job will somehow follow. Those who "do whatever you want" are going to do it regardless. I write software for a living because software is my life: I'm going to write software no matter what, I did it compulsively from an early age, and got good enough at it that someone wanted to pay me to do it. Michael Dell and Bill Gates and others dropped out of college because it got in their way of compulsively creating technology businesses. Eminem spends every spare moment writing lyrics, and if he has no paper he'll scrawl them on a wall. "Be anything you want to be" only works for those who have a want, not for those who don't.
- kadavy 14y ago
  > "Want" is not picking a warm-fuzzy-inducing phrase off a list because you feel compelled to make a choice. "Want" is "get the he11 out of my way" compulsive drive which permeates your being. To many faced with "you can be whatever you want" don't want to do anything; all they "want" is satisfaction of basic urges and amusements. I think you're articulating perfectly the "delusions" that those in the "me" generation have. There's a big difference between "wanting" to be, say, a famous singer because you want adoring fans, and "wanting" to be a famous singer because you truly love music to your very core, will sacrifice anything short of your own life to do it, and because you really have a unique point of view to share. But, even for those in the latter camp, they have to have at least some sensitivity to their audience, and the market forces that enable them to pursue their passion as a livelihood.
  - ricardobeat 14y ago
    Well, knowing how to market yourself is just something you have to learn on the way. It's part of "wanting".
datalus 14y ago
This should also be advice for Groupon... as their shares continue to slide down.
rmk2 14y ago
And here we go again. The article's essence: "All you pesky, silly little humanities students, go do something useful like we CS people/engineers. No really. Build an app. Become an entrepeneur. Fail horribly, sleep on somebody's couch, oh wait. Have instant success. Become rich. Be the new Zuckerberg. Or work in a bar. Forever. Serving drinks to us. Silly, silly non-engineers." We've had dozens of these articles recently, and they all garner the exact same responses, lots of people here (rather unsurprisingly) agree (→ know your market), some disagree, both camps supply their position by dabbling in dazzling amounts of anecdotal evidence. Voilá, HN front page + discussion in a nut shell... Alternative reading: Y'all just need to learn to code, so you too can be instantly successful... Bonus points: Guess which camp I belong to, bash me for my post solely because of this, ignoring the HN critique
- AznHisoka 14y ago
  No, actually I don't think the article is excluding CS engineers. He just says you have to learn how to sell and be entrepreneurial. If anything, he's addressing those engineers that think making an app is enough to give you success.
  - rmk2 14y ago
    Well, the comments here certainly do. Apart from that though, there aren't all that many "other" professions where you can "just" invent something new and go and become an entrepeneur just like that. They have a higher entry barrier, so I do think the article is very much about CS, dismissing everything else just outright from the onset.
    - anamax 14y ago
      > there aren't all that many "other" professions where you can "just" invent something new and go and become an entrepeneur just like that. The article didn't say to invent something. It said to produce value. You can see lots of opportunities where that's possible by just going through any reasonably sized town. You may not be able to just start a refinery, but you can sell gas and/or repair cars.
msluyter 14y ago
As an ex aspiring classical musician, this is a topic near to my heart. I think the article is somewhat besides the point. You can agree with all of it, and yet still believe that you'll succeed in your chosen field because you're better. You think you'll be one of the few, who -- through superior talent, dedication, passion, etc... -- will make it. That's the delusion that kept me going for too long. Not any misconception that there was actually a market for classical flutists.
- ricardobeat 14y ago
  The very act of quitting makes it all become a delusion. You can't say it wouldn't have happened otherwise.
barce 14y ago
I thoroughly enjoyed the realism in this piece. It is refreshing. "But it will take the courage to confront reality..." Yes!
utopkara 14y ago
Please downvote this article. It has nothing to do with news, nor hackers, let alone hackernews. Unless such entries get downvotes, the top of HN will be infested with canned controversial opinion pieces.
- CKKim 14y ago
  I often find myself thinking similarly when such articles are posted, but I remind myself that "Hacker News" used to be "Startup News" and the change in name doesn't represent a change in subject.
javert 14y ago
While the main thesis isn't well-supported, the author makes a series of extremely good points. Being aware of these points is exactly what you need if you do want to really shoot for doing what you really want to do.
javert 14y ago
Some trivial professions are grossly overpaid, while many other beneficial professions are grossly underpaid. I'd like to contest this. Overpaid and underpaid - by what standard? The standard ought to be how much someone is willing to pay you for your goods or services (whether you're an employee or an entrepreneur). I think this actually matches people's intuition a lot more than they realize. Oftentimes, when it seems like someone intuitively ought to make more, it's actually because they are making significantly under what would be a true market rate, because their work is not actually being offered on a free market. Case in point: scientists and educators who work for the government.
jinfiesto 14y ago
Grrrr. Articles like this really irritate me. While he's sort of right, I think the whole article is somewhat misleading. In my experience, if you're the best at something, you'll probably be able to make a decent living doing it, unless it's underwater basket weaving levels of useless. What people don't seem to understand is that passion and discipline are interlinked. Like any long-term relationship, your passions are going to have ups and downs, times where you don't want to push forward. Discipline and willpower are the only ways anyone can convert passion into marketable skill. So yeah, you can do anything you want. You just have to be willing to be disciplined on top of being passionate.
- forensic 14y ago
  The actual interesting phenomenon here is how this pablum makes it to the frontpage. It shows how philosophically and emotionally juvenile the readership here is. It exposes HN as a frat-like atmosphere full of blowhard meatheads obsessed with trite "Top N Ways to Succeed!" Your comment is level-headed and insightful and it's a rehash of ancient understandings regarding the value and meaning of work and life. Passion, discipline, prudence temperance justice fortitude patience charity faith and hope. These "link-bait" discussions were stale thousands of years ago. How very simple-minded the "smart" people here are, for all their delusions of high intellectualism. Maybe if HNers took more humanities they wouldn't be so fascinated by these shallow articles.
BasDirks 14y ago
The author fails to escape a nihilistic world view, but doesn't notice it. He is mistaking the action for the value of the action. He speaks of these things too early in his life and I cringe at noticing this fact, being 24 myself. "You can be anything you want to be" is simply true, because notice how it says "can" and not "will". "You can be anything you want to be" is an invitation to self-creation and to not shutting the door on any dreams. When you peel away one layer of life's veils, the next awaits you. Blog authors in general have a hard time adapting their stance and tone to this truth.
BasDirks 14y ago
The author fails to escape a nihilistic world view, but doesn't notice it. He is mistaking the action for the value of the action. He speaks of these things too early in his life and I cringe at noticing this fact, being 24 myself. "You can be anything you want to be" is simply true, because notice how it says "can" and not "will". "You can be anything you want to be" is an invitation to self-creation and to not shutting the door on any dreams. When you peel away one layer of life's veils, the next awaits you. Blog authors in general have a hard time adapting their stance and tone to this truth.
rodolphoarruda 14y ago
Intelligence is key for compensation, money. Unfortunately it is at the eye of the beholder. It is perceived in you by the others with means to pay for your social value. Even though I know a lot about basketball and have some skills, I can't make my basketball intelligence payoff for me in the NBA. I'm short and slow, while all the other players are tall and quick. My body is unfit for professional basketball, it reduces my intelligence, thus my ability to generate perceived value. The NBA is an extreme (and tangible) example, but so is our current TI/Web industry. It requires a tricky mix of social/behavioral intelligence with technical intelligence that makes it very hard to the average professional to stand out. Maybe that's why there's so much frustration in the industry. People have the skills and the will to succeed, but something is always missing in their profile. Howard Gardner's "multiple intelligences"[1] may help us understand what's going on. Our industry prefers some types of intelligence because they seem to be more aligned with business success than others. Some people have developed this intelligence during their childhood and early adult lives, thus are more attractive to some job positions than others. If your predominant intelligence is "logical-mathematical"[2], chances are you will be very motivated to work/study with CS; and expect just the contrary if you are "Bodily-kinesthetic"[3]. Well, my two cents. Just bringing in a different perspective. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligence... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences#Logical-mathematical http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligence... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences#Bodily-kinesthetic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligence...
donnaware 14y ago
You can't always do what you love, but you can always love what you do, what ever you do, do it with passion and dedication and you can love it.
AznHisoka 14y ago
I like the message in this post. The media loves to romanticize devoting your life to a passion. For instance, we idolize athletes. But it's EASY (relatively) to do what you're passionate about if it's in align with making a lot of money, and your unique gifts. On the other hand, it's HARD to do stuff you dislike b/c your family depends on it. Why don't we give some attention to those people instead?
readymade 14y ago
We all profit in some way or another from people following their passions, often in the face of hardship. The Spotify or Rdio playlist you're probably listening to as you work is the result of untold legions of people following their dreams, and in many cases without much money to show for it. If every aspiring artist or musician took the kind of attitude so often espoused here to heart, and followed pragmatism over passion, we would live in a pretty bleak world.
ruswick 14y ago
As a junior in high school, I think the notion that our generation is entitled or that we simply put in a perfunctory effort and coast through the education system expecting jobs on the other end is entirely fallacious. We're all fairly realistic about educational/occupational complex: work your ass off in high school, go to a college with, and get a degree with, a high ROI (even if it's not what you really want), work your ass off some more, and count yourself lucky if you can get an unpaid internship, much less a salaried job. I find it absurd that people think students expect to be handed jobs on a silver platter. Everyone accepts that the job market is difficult even if you are talented, and I don't think many truly expect a job just because they have a degree. Most everyone realizes that "following your dreams" is financially untenable.
- commanda 14y ago
  I think the point of the article was that it has nothing to do with how hard you work, or really even with entitlement. It has to do with finding product-market fit, where you are the product.
  - ruswick 14y ago
    His argument was twofold. I think you're right in that he touches on the effects of supply and demand in relation to job availability. However, he also touches on the fact that you need to work hard and "make yourself valuable" in order to find employment. Therein he argues that most people don't put in the necessary effort because they believe that they are owed or are entitled to jobs.
CKKim 14y ago
I thought this when I first read the article a few hours ago and decided to wait to see if anyone else posted (they haven't, so I may be wildly off with this) but "You must be entrepreneurial" sticks out to me as a mostly redundant combination of the preceding points. I wonder if the piece would be better or worse if that paragraph were replaced with a shorter one titled "Run Your Own Business" (IMO that would be even more out of place, but make the point more clearly), or simply removed altogether. Taking on board what people have commented in this thread, I think it ought to be replaced with "insert your passion here". He has chosen entrepreneurship because that's his thing, but it seems to me idiosyncratic.
jobu 14y ago
The article isn't as bad as the link-bait title, but still I don't understand how some people can make it to 20, let alone 30 and not realize that "be anything you want" has some huge caveats: 1) it usually takes a lot of work, perseverance, and sacrifice 2) You may not get paid what you think you should
deleted 14y ago
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eeeeaaii 14y ago
I just want to say that what I've found is that you need a balance. Swing too far in the direction of "Do what you love" and you'll hate the fact that you're poor and can't get a job. Swing too far in the direction of "do what's practical" and you'll have all this money but you'll hate what you have to do to get it. It's not either/or. The best thing to do is find a career that is exciting or interesting to you in some ways, but also has a good bit of practicality. In other words, we shouldn't be asking kids "what do you want to be when you grow up?" The question should be -- "What are the top five things you could see yourself doing?" Because of those 5 things maybe 4 of them are impractical, and maybe the lucrative one isn't the top choice, but it's up there.
Crake 14y ago
A pity that the only ones who will take heed of this are the people who aren't already brainwashed into the cult of their own self-superiority.
jason3 14y ago
Fuck this guy, I don't need someone telling me shit.
- dinkumthinkum 14y ago
  Honestly, I think this is the best response I could imagine for this post.
pjzedalis 14y ago
This is a terrible article that basically says hope is not enough to change market dynamics. How numerous comments degenerated into capitalism vs socialism only further proves the original point. Everybody wants something for nothing.
cies 14y ago
i interpret that question different; "you can be what you want" to me is like "you can choose what you want to be". and very much believe that is true. so i've chosen to be "happy", "engaging", "kicking ass", "rich". some of my friends dont get it they choose to be "wanting to be rich/happy/etc". the thing is since i decide to be happy, im happy, and will always (try to) find proof for that. so... "you can be what you want", is quite true to me...
dbrannan 14y ago
Pick two... 1. Job security 2. Job satisfaction 3. Good pay I've never had a job that had all three, and it is really critical you avoid jobs that only give you one of these options.
- solnyshok 14y ago
  nailed it, tx
rrmm 14y ago
opportunity for entrepreneurs: build things to help people be what they want

141 points by seanjohnson 14y ago

This is similar to a realization I had a few years ago about my own career and training. I got it in my head that my company should provide training to use the newest technologies for their benefit. It only took a few years of the "it's not broken so don't fix it" culture to realize they don't care how it works, as long as it works. And that I am responsible for my own growth. The cost is using my own free time and resources, the value (aside from learning) is that I get to choose what I will learn, hello JQuery/Ruby/MongoDB/Heroku. TLDR: Growing on your own is more fun and enriching than being dependent on others.

paulhauggis 14y ago
This may be true. But, if you have a site running with older technology, I wouldn't want to use new technology just for the sake of using new technology. When something works, why take the risk? Especially if it involves money.
- heathlilley 14y ago
  I agree, that is why it's up to the developer to improve their skills if they don't want to keep writing Action classes and POJO JDBC classes for that legacy Struts 1.1 webapp.

Link- 14y ago

Exactly the observations I (and I'm sure many others) have been trying to formulate for the past few years and preaching offline, but much better organized and well said by Sean Johnson.. Beautifully written! Kudos for being spot on!

lmm 14y ago

I think "you must provide value" cuts both ways. Don't work for an employer who isn't providing you with value. Recognise that there will always be tradeoffs between your happiness at work and your pay, in both directions; know how much value you place on your own time, or on gaining experience, and act accordingly.

jsiarto 14y ago

This. We need to stop sugar-coating things in this world. I'm an adjunct at a major Big Ten school and I see this all time with my students. The mentality is that if I just have enough education, the jobs will be waiting (law students anyone?) -- yet these sames students make little to know effort in school to do anything other than show up (occasionally) and squeak by with their 3.0. The parents of my generation (born in 1984) have babied and protected their children to a fault. Reality is not always pleasant and life isn't fair--instead of telling our kids they can be anything, we need to give them the tools to choose marketable and worthwhile careers. Unfortunately, we can't all be astronauts and veterinarians.

debacle 14y ago
For the parents of our generation, all you really needed to do was show up and squeak by with a 3.0. School was harder, college was harder, and there were more opportunities. We need to stop pretending that there is one root cause to this problem. The real cause is the degradation in the quality of the American populace.
- mechanical_fish 14y ago
  Ah, so that's why 90% of my colleagues with Ph.D.s in physics didn't get jobs as professors of physics. They just weren't of a high-enough quality. If only they'd worked 35% harder, the universities would have created physicist jobs for everyone. Yeah, that's how economics works! You might want to go back to the part about "opportunities".
teach 14y ago
I agree wholeheartedly. My wife is an associate professor at a top-10 CS school (though she's not in the CS department). I wish we could FORCE all the incoming freshmen to read this essay. And read it again every semester.
randomdata 14y ago
> The mentality is that if I just have enough education, the jobs will be waiting (law students anyone?) Anyone who has this mentality is not following their dreams, they are following the crowd. Crowd-followers rarely do find success. That is what stood out to me in the article. The people who are being written about are not really doing what they want to do, they are doing what is expected of them (go to college and then get a good job). I wonder if the results would be different if these people struck their own path?

spressto 14y ago

Great points. The only nuance I'd add is that, while it may be a little unfair, the truth is that SOME people can be whatever they want to be. They possess the smarts, confidence, resources, and whatever to barrel through that, with a little bit of luck thrown in they can get that crazy competitive job that combines money and fulfillment perfectly or have enough financial runway to keep fighting until their passion project works. But many can't. And they get burned when the feel good 'follow your dreams' advice can't be realized because of market dynamics and the fact that they lack many of the fundamentals that your article rightly shows are key.

bluetidepro 14y ago

Personally, as an optimist, I don't like this because I feel like there is always an exception to the rule. Don't get me wrong, this article has good points, in general, but I just don't like the pessimistic view of the title -- "Why you can't be anything you want to be."

thwarted 14y ago
If the rule is everyone can be what they want to be, that doesn't bode well for those that end up as the exceptions. And as you say, there are always exceptions.
- bluetidepro 14y ago
  That is very true, but I also see it as being the lesser of two evils. I, personally, would much rather like the idea that if I work towards something with goals, hard-work, etc. that I can be the rule. Instead of just giving up before even trying because "I think I'll always just be an exception". If you follow what I mean? I guess it's somewhat of a catch 22.

Swizec 14y ago

There is a quote from a Mad Men episode: "Not every ballerina can grow up to be the prima ballerina" It feels relevant.

shawndumas 14y ago
perhaps a more relevant sentiment would be, 'not every aspiring ballerina can make a living as a ballerina'.
- ricardobeat 14y ago
  I don't think this one rings as true as the parent.
lrs 14y ago
Assuming you're referring to Marie's scolding of Megan, I think the quote is closer to "Not every little girl gets to do what she wants - the world could not support that many ballerinas." Which is even closer to what this article is saying.

_delirium 14y ago

This makes some sense, but honestly I'm not seeing much new in these endless repetitions of the same debate. It goes back to at least the 1960s and the debate over the "Me generation" [1]. Probably earlier. There's a tension between raising armies of cogs-in-the-machine on the one hand, and beautiful butterflies on the other, and some orthogonal other questions besides. Some of it also interacts with politics, and I'm not sure I accept all the premises. For example, from my current vantage point in Denmark, society does generally believe that you are entitled to at least a basic living (food/shelter/healthcare), even if not a great one. Then it becomes a question of what you wish to do above that, in both economic and non-economic senses. One presumably wishes to both earn more money than the absolute minimum, but also to contribute to society beyond the absolute minimum; the two desires may or may not be aligned, and there are many paths to doing either/both. In other countries (notably the USA), political views are different on that question. In my own personal opinion I do think it is, in part, "a moral or systematic failure on the part of society" that the situation in the USA is as it is, but that's sort of its own debate (I'm not really anti-market, as I feel they're useful and in any case inevitable, but I don't necessarily think that maket valuation is everything). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_generation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_generation

teach 14y ago
You clearly don't work with college-aged students in the United States if you think the material in this essay is old hat. Regardless of what's been written or how often, the vast majority of students entering top universities today are deluded.
njharman 14y ago
> society does generally believe that you are entitled to at least a basic living (food/shelter/healthcare) That and the OA "The market doesn’t care what you love" are why I'm very socialist very anti the attitude/mantra "free market solves everything!!!". Markets should not dictate how our society operates. Society should not value efficiency and profit over all else. Society should provide everyone with minimum food/shelter/health/education and let them choose what else to do. Whether that's make assloads of money as investment banker or play drums at love ins.

dave_sullivan 14y ago

I generally agree with the points of the article. I think a better title would be "What you need to know to be anything you want to be". The economy is complex enough to provide room in just about any field someone would want to enter--but there is no golden ticket piece of paper that will open the door for you. No one wants to grow up to put plastic on the end of shoelaces, but many are not adaptable so they try to beat a dead horse even though technology has supplanted their job (a bad move as you rightly point out). My point being, don't swing too far in the direction of "Life sucks, deal with it!" because that's not quite true either.

dgreensp 14y ago
Yes, I also agree with the advice but not the conclusion. I suspect the only people in their 30s who can honestly say they spent their entire 20s in full-time pursuit of a career in their passion and got nowhere are PhD graduates. This says more about PhDs and mistaken beliefs surrounding them than anything else. I feel like I had more options for what to be (i.e. career) than I was aware of, it's just the "how" that was left out.
- Crake 14y ago
  That and people who did art in undergrad. I know quite a few that still live with their parents and/or work for close to minimum wage.

__abc 14y ago

Anybody can be anything they want to be. It just takes more work, time, commitment, and tenacity than people realize.

randomdata 14y ago
I somehow doubt the people in rural Africa struggle because they just aren't working hard enough or aren't committed enough to reaching the "American dream". Though I do agree that some people miss out on opportunities as a result of not taking advantage of those qualities.
- ricardobeat 14y ago
  The gist still stands. There are likely many succesful people from the poorest countries who only achieved success because they believed and worked harder than anyone else. The threshold is just much higher.
  - sopooneo 14y ago
    So is this extreme hard work a sufficient condition, or just a necessary one?
    - __abc 14y ago
      I am by no means implying it takes "extreme" hard work. I'm merely stating that on average it takes more work then people realize.

ScottBurson 14y ago

I don't think the author proves his thesis at all. All he ahows is that being whatever you want to be is going to take effort -- you're going to have to put your heart into it. It's not just a matter of sitting around and waiting for it. Did anyone really think it was? Is anyone really saying, "You can be anything you want to be -- just sit around and wait for it to show up"? If so, that certainly would be a lie, but that's not the message I hear being said and it's certainly not the message I like to send. If your dream is, to take a recently topical example, to compete in the Olympics, do you really think you can get there just by sitting in front of the TV thinking "I want to be in the Olympics"? Yeah, you might wind up in the Olympics as an usher :-) But if you want to compete as an athlete, you're going to have to work your ass off. Is there really anyone who doesn't know this??? Or, let's take the teacher example. If you dream of being a great teacher who truly inspires students to learn, you can absolutely have that. Maybe it will take the usual form of teaching in a school, or maybe you'll do something different, like Sal Khan. Either way, if you aspire to be a great teacher and you do the work required to become that, you will be able to do that and get paid for it somehow. There may be too many ordinary teachers, but there are never enough great ones. That's true in any area. On the other hand, if all you aspire to is mediocrity, that's not a passion -- it's the absence of a passion. If the only thoughts you have about what you want to be are, "yeah, it would be nice to be X", then I absolutely agree with the author: you're unlikely to get that. But it doesn't mean you can't; it just means you won't.

nostromo 14y ago
Most people can never compete in the Olympics. Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt have physical characteristics that you and I do not have. For most Olympic sports this is the case. Why pretend otherwise? Acknowledging it doesn't mean you and I can't do great things in life. It just means there are particular great things that we will never be able to do, and should not waste our time trying to do.
- ricardobeat 14y ago
  Have you seen that guy competing with prosthetic legs? He completely blows your argument. He is at the bottom of the scale on "phisically disadvantaged". Olympic athletes are not super heros. There are the exceptions, but 95% of them are "normal" people who just work really hard. Maybe you can't be the greatest sprinter ever (who knows?) but you could make it to the olympics. The brazilian judo gold winner was just a very poor girl with a wish 4 years ago.

ctdonath 14y ago

I was just discussing the "do whatever you want" last night. "Want" is not picking a warm-fuzzy-inducing phrase off a list because you feel compelled to make a choice. "Want" is "get the he11 out of my way" compulsive drive which permeates your being. To many faced with "you can be whatever you want" don't want to do anything; all they "want" is satisfaction of basic urges and amusements. Pressured to attend college or get a job, they perceive "do whatever you want" as picking a marginally satisfying term from a menu, and dutifully showing up for class and assuming a job will somehow follow. Those who "do whatever you want" are going to do it regardless. I write software for a living because software is my life: I'm going to write software no matter what, I did it compulsively from an early age, and got good enough at it that someone wanted to pay me to do it. Michael Dell and Bill Gates and others dropped out of college because it got in their way of compulsively creating technology businesses. Eminem spends every spare moment writing lyrics, and if he has no paper he'll scrawl them on a wall. "Be anything you want to be" only works for those who have a want, not for those who don't.

kadavy 14y ago
> "Want" is not picking a warm-fuzzy-inducing phrase off a list because you feel compelled to make a choice. "Want" is "get the he11 out of my way" compulsive drive which permeates your being. To many faced with "you can be whatever you want" don't want to do anything; all they "want" is satisfaction of basic urges and amusements. I think you're articulating perfectly the "delusions" that those in the "me" generation have. There's a big difference between "wanting" to be, say, a famous singer because you want adoring fans, and "wanting" to be a famous singer because you truly love music to your very core, will sacrifice anything short of your own life to do it, and because you really have a unique point of view to share. But, even for those in the latter camp, they have to have at least some sensitivity to their audience, and the market forces that enable them to pursue their passion as a livelihood.
- ricardobeat 14y ago
  Well, knowing how to market yourself is just something you have to learn on the way. It's part of "wanting".

datalus 14y ago

This should also be advice for Groupon... as their shares continue to slide down.

rmk2 14y ago

And here we go again. The article's essence: "All you pesky, silly little humanities students, go do something useful like we CS people/engineers. No really. Build an app. Become an entrepeneur. Fail horribly, sleep on somebody's couch, oh wait. Have instant success. Become rich. Be the new Zuckerberg. Or work in a bar. Forever. Serving drinks to us. Silly, silly non-engineers." We've had dozens of these articles recently, and they all garner the exact same responses, lots of people here (rather unsurprisingly) agree (→ know your market), some disagree, both camps supply their position by dabbling in dazzling amounts of anecdotal evidence. Voilá, HN front page + discussion in a nut shell... Alternative reading: Y'all just need to learn to code, so you too can be instantly successful... Bonus points: Guess which camp I belong to, bash me for my post solely because of this, ignoring the HN critique

AznHisoka 14y ago
No, actually I don't think the article is excluding CS engineers. He just says you have to learn how to sell and be entrepreneurial. If anything, he's addressing those engineers that think making an app is enough to give you success.
- rmk2 14y ago
  Well, the comments here certainly do. Apart from that though, there aren't all that many "other" professions where you can "just" invent something new and go and become an entrepeneur just like that. They have a higher entry barrier, so I do think the article is very much about CS, dismissing everything else just outright from the onset.
  - anamax 14y ago
    > there aren't all that many "other" professions where you can "just" invent something new and go and become an entrepeneur just like that. The article didn't say to invent something. It said to produce value. You can see lots of opportunities where that's possible by just going through any reasonably sized town. You may not be able to just start a refinery, but you can sell gas and/or repair cars.

msluyter 14y ago

As an ex aspiring classical musician, this is a topic near to my heart. I think the article is somewhat besides the point. You can agree with all of it, and yet still believe that you'll succeed in your chosen field because you're better. You think you'll be one of the few, who -- through superior talent, dedication, passion, etc... -- will make it. That's the delusion that kept me going for too long. Not any misconception that there was actually a market for classical flutists.

ricardobeat 14y ago
The very act of quitting makes it all become a delusion. You can't say it wouldn't have happened otherwise.

barce 14y ago

I thoroughly enjoyed the realism in this piece. It is refreshing. "But it will take the courage to confront reality..." Yes!

utopkara 14y ago

Please downvote this article. It has nothing to do with news, nor hackers, let alone hackernews. Unless such entries get downvotes, the top of HN will be infested with canned controversial opinion pieces.

CKKim 14y ago
I often find myself thinking similarly when such articles are posted, but I remind myself that "Hacker News" used to be "Startup News" and the change in name doesn't represent a change in subject.

javert 14y ago

While the main thesis isn't well-supported, the author makes a series of extremely good points. Being aware of these points is exactly what you need if you do want to really shoot for doing what you really want to do.

javert 14y ago

Some trivial professions are grossly overpaid, while many other beneficial professions are grossly underpaid. I'd like to contest this. Overpaid and underpaid - by what standard? The standard ought to be how much someone is willing to pay you for your goods or services (whether you're an employee or an entrepreneur). I think this actually matches people's intuition a lot more than they realize. Oftentimes, when it seems like someone intuitively ought to make more, it's actually because they are making significantly under what would be a true market rate, because their work is not actually being offered on a free market. Case in point: scientists and educators who work for the government.

jinfiesto 14y ago

Grrrr. Articles like this really irritate me. While he's sort of right, I think the whole article is somewhat misleading. In my experience, if you're the best at something, you'll probably be able to make a decent living doing it, unless it's underwater basket weaving levels of useless. What people don't seem to understand is that passion and discipline are interlinked. Like any long-term relationship, your passions are going to have ups and downs, times where you don't want to push forward. Discipline and willpower are the only ways anyone can convert passion into marketable skill. So yeah, you can do anything you want. You just have to be willing to be disciplined on top of being passionate.

forensic 14y ago
The actual interesting phenomenon here is how this pablum makes it to the frontpage. It shows how philosophically and emotionally juvenile the readership here is. It exposes HN as a frat-like atmosphere full of blowhard meatheads obsessed with trite "Top N Ways to Succeed!" Your comment is level-headed and insightful and it's a rehash of ancient understandings regarding the value and meaning of work and life. Passion, discipline, prudence temperance justice fortitude patience charity faith and hope. These "link-bait" discussions were stale thousands of years ago. How very simple-minded the "smart" people here are, for all their delusions of high intellectualism. Maybe if HNers took more humanities they wouldn't be so fascinated by these shallow articles.

BasDirks 14y ago

The author fails to escape a nihilistic world view, but doesn't notice it. He is mistaking the action for the value of the action. He speaks of these things too early in his life and I cringe at noticing this fact, being 24 myself. "You can be anything you want to be" is simply true, because notice how it says "can" and not "will". "You can be anything you want to be" is an invitation to self-creation and to not shutting the door on any dreams. When you peel away one layer of life's veils, the next awaits you. Blog authors in general have a hard time adapting their stance and tone to this truth.

BasDirks 14y ago

rodolphoarruda 14y ago

Intelligence is key for compensation, money. Unfortunately it is at the eye of the beholder. It is perceived in you by the others with means to pay for your social value. Even though I know a lot about basketball and have some skills, I can't make my basketball intelligence payoff for me in the NBA. I'm short and slow, while all the other players are tall and quick. My body is unfit for professional basketball, it reduces my intelligence, thus my ability to generate perceived value. The NBA is an extreme (and tangible) example, but so is our current TI/Web industry. It requires a tricky mix of social/behavioral intelligence with technical intelligence that makes it very hard to the average professional to stand out. Maybe that's why there's so much frustration in the industry. People have the skills and the will to succeed, but something is always missing in their profile. Howard Gardner's "multiple intelligences"[1] may help us understand what's going on. Our industry prefers some types of intelligence because they seem to be more aligned with business success than others. Some people have developed this intelligence during their childhood and early adult lives, thus are more attractive to some job positions than others. If your predominant intelligence is "logical-mathematical"[2], chances are you will be very motivated to work/study with CS; and expect just the contrary if you are "Bodily-kinesthetic"[3]. Well, my two cents. Just bringing in a different perspective. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligence... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences#Logical-mathematical http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligence... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences#Bodily-kinesthetic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligence...

donnaware 14y ago

You can't always do what you love, but you can always love what you do, what ever you do, do it with passion and dedication and you can love it.

AznHisoka 14y ago

I like the message in this post. The media loves to romanticize devoting your life to a passion. For instance, we idolize athletes. But it's EASY (relatively) to do what you're passionate about if it's in align with making a lot of money, and your unique gifts. On the other hand, it's HARD to do stuff you dislike b/c your family depends on it. Why don't we give some attention to those people instead?

readymade 14y ago

We all profit in some way or another from people following their passions, often in the face of hardship. The Spotify or Rdio playlist you're probably listening to as you work is the result of untold legions of people following their dreams, and in many cases without much money to show for it. If every aspiring artist or musician took the kind of attitude so often espoused here to heart, and followed pragmatism over passion, we would live in a pretty bleak world.

ruswick 14y ago

As a junior in high school, I think the notion that our generation is entitled or that we simply put in a perfunctory effort and coast through the education system expecting jobs on the other end is entirely fallacious. We're all fairly realistic about educational/occupational complex: work your ass off in high school, go to a college with, and get a degree with, a high ROI (even if it's not what you really want), work your ass off some more, and count yourself lucky if you can get an unpaid internship, much less a salaried job. I find it absurd that people think students expect to be handed jobs on a silver platter. Everyone accepts that the job market is difficult even if you are talented, and I don't think many truly expect a job just because they have a degree. Most everyone realizes that "following your dreams" is financially untenable.

commanda 14y ago
I think the point of the article was that it has nothing to do with how hard you work, or really even with entitlement. It has to do with finding product-market fit, where you are the product.
- ruswick 14y ago
  His argument was twofold. I think you're right in that he touches on the effects of supply and demand in relation to job availability. However, he also touches on the fact that you need to work hard and "make yourself valuable" in order to find employment. Therein he argues that most people don't put in the necessary effort because they believe that they are owed or are entitled to jobs.

CKKim 14y ago

I thought this when I first read the article a few hours ago and decided to wait to see if anyone else posted (they haven't, so I may be wildly off with this) but "You must be entrepreneurial" sticks out to me as a mostly redundant combination of the preceding points. I wonder if the piece would be better or worse if that paragraph were replaced with a shorter one titled "Run Your Own Business" (IMO that would be even more out of place, but make the point more clearly), or simply removed altogether. Taking on board what people have commented in this thread, I think it ought to be replaced with "insert your passion here". He has chosen entrepreneurship because that's his thing, but it seems to me idiosyncratic.

jobu 14y ago

The article isn't as bad as the link-bait title, but still I don't understand how some people can make it to 20, let alone 30 and not realize that "be anything you want" has some huge caveats: 1) it usually takes a lot of work, perseverance, and sacrifice 2) You may not get paid what you think you should

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

eeeeaaii 14y ago

I just want to say that what I've found is that you need a balance. Swing too far in the direction of "Do what you love" and you'll hate the fact that you're poor and can't get a job. Swing too far in the direction of "do what's practical" and you'll have all this money but you'll hate what you have to do to get it. It's not either/or. The best thing to do is find a career that is exciting or interesting to you in some ways, but also has a good bit of practicality. In other words, we shouldn't be asking kids "what do you want to be when you grow up?" The question should be -- "What are the top five things you could see yourself doing?" Because of those 5 things maybe 4 of them are impractical, and maybe the lucrative one isn't the top choice, but it's up there.

Crake 14y ago

A pity that the only ones who will take heed of this are the people who aren't already brainwashed into the cult of their own self-superiority.

jason3 14y ago

Fuck this guy, I don't need someone telling me shit.

dinkumthinkum 14y ago
Honestly, I think this is the best response I could imagine for this post.

pjzedalis 14y ago

This is a terrible article that basically says hope is not enough to change market dynamics. How numerous comments degenerated into capitalism vs socialism only further proves the original point. Everybody wants something for nothing.

cies 14y ago

i interpret that question different; "you can be what you want" to me is like "you can choose what you want to be". and very much believe that is true. so i've chosen to be "happy", "engaging", "kicking ass", "rich". some of my friends dont get it they choose to be "wanting to be rich/happy/etc". the thing is since i decide to be happy, im happy, and will always (try to) find proof for that. so... "you can be what you want", is quite true to me...

dbrannan 14y ago

Pick two... 1. Job security 2. Job satisfaction 3. Good pay I've never had a job that had all three, and it is really critical you avoid jobs that only give you one of these options.

solnyshok 14y ago
nailed it, tx

rrmm 14y ago

opportunity for entrepreneurs: build things to help people be what they want