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flexagonIn case you wanted the food for thought but didn't want the self-absorption, I've left the quotes from the book (What Should I Do With My Life? by Po Bronson) out of the cuts. Everything behind the cuts is my thinking on the quotes. If you click them... well, I hope you have lots of time to read today. :)
For background for those who don't know, I started at DSB out of college in '99 after learning all about mechanical engineering. Career switch #1. I did it for a few reasons, but primarily because I wanted to stay in the city and figure out what was going on with HLM and me. I liked the five-year plan... stay at DSB for that long and I'd definitely be employable in software (check), and I'd know what was going on with HLM (check), and might have a better idea of what to do with my life (oh... shit). See, I had really, really, always-ever-since-99 planned to quit this year. But here is where the plan ends, and really, nothing's become much clearer. In some ways, all I've done is tie myself down--though that's just one perception. Another perception is that I'm free of student loans, free of worry about finding a partner and free of having a landlord who might raise rent on me at any point. Anyway...
I don't know anymore whether I'm gearing up for Career Switch #2, preparing to keep a similar job but switch industries (many, many days I think this is what I want), or just preparing to coast at DSB for another fair chunk of time and renovate my bathroom and enjoy my amazing new office. I no longer think I have to move right away, and I no longer think DSB is evil overall (though it is useless, and has done evil things). I never will think of it as my calling though, ever.
Say out loud:
"Flexagon worked for a stupid defense contractor for five years, then switched to having a meaningful job."
"Flexagon worked for a stupid defense contractor for seven years, then switched to having a meaningful job."
Not so different. Panic and hurry aren't needed. But I don't have any excuse to not be thinking about it anymore, either.
Pretend this is a quote from the book about the guy who had a Working Class Self and a College Grad Self, and had some internal class warfare as a result.
I've got this going on bigtime. Did you know how comfortable I feel in junkyards and machine shops? Do you know how much I resented my fellow MIT grads who seemed just like me and had the same education, but not the student loans? It was such a sharp reminder that I just don't come from the same planet as, well, them. The rich people. I saw a quote somewhere about how a poor person is always going to be a poor person, just (if they do well) a poor person with money. So true. And I, I have a piece of me that's so fucking happy to be sitting in this yuppie home right now, no machine grease anywhere, fairly neat, with real furniture to sit on instead of something my dad slapped together out of boards and logs... if you don't know, I can't even tell you. (Sordid details, anyone? Well, I grew up in a one-room 15 x 20 foot log cabin with a bare concrete floor. When I was 12 my dad added on a 16 x 16 addition to the house, and then I slept in there, so it got better, but I remember the one-room days very well.) I remember when my family was doing well, so well we could afford to go out for pizza once a week, and then later doing less well. That, I have to finally confess to myself, is still somewhat with me, though I try to avoid and ignore and deny it. But the other thing I didn't realize until recently is that that's the part of myself that can be more easily satisfied! That me got what she wanted all her life--she escaped, she is living nicely in a city and in a marriage not like her parents' and is making a nice home. That part of me feels so blessed it borders on guilty. That part of me had a talk with her mom last weekend about the times when it was even worse at home, before I was 5 and when, apparently, the house didn't have plumbing for hot water yet and my mom had to wash her hair in a pail of water heated up on the wood-burning stove she cooked on. Yikes, oh yikes. In just one generation we go from that to someone who feels resentful sometimes as she sits at her computer on her $800 Aeron chair. But this side of me does not resent the little things, or indeed the medium things.
The other me, MIT Grad, is not doing so badly, yet. But she also reads about the Lemelson winners and all the people starting businesses, and she wants sometimes to be featured in Tech Review. She wants greatness, has been told it's out there, but hasn't gathered up her courage for any such thing. Ideas come slowly and turn out not to be moneymakers. To satisfy this one is going to be harder. But that is me, too. I fought too long for the label (more backstory: I started wanting to go to MIT when I was seven, yes seven) not to claim the label. But how to live up to it, truly? Oh barf. Writing software for a stupid defense contractor forever sure isn't it.
And the two people fight.
I seriously think it might help me to write down a dialog between the two of them, sometime.
A lot of jobs can give you the quick rush--ER physician, currency trader, start-up junkie, concert promoter, grill cook--anything with a lot of risk or a furious amount of activity. But before you can label it your calling, it has to take on personal significance and be woven into the story of your life....
You don't find your purpose above the neck. If you use your brain to solve this problem, you'll usually end up with an answer that only makes your brain happy. (p. 49)
True, passion doesn't come from the head; although I think there's an incredibly strong tendency in our culture to make work our brainiest activity. How many people have a non-brainy job but challenge their brains much more in some other way? I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I don't know anyone who does it.
Writing and debugging software very much suits my creative and puzzle-solving tendencies. I would hate to stop using those parts of my brain for such large parts of the day, because I don't think I'd make up for the loss elsewhere. Not even if I joined book clubs and MENSA and the local chess club. It's just... unlikely. And I have to confess, my current balance of mind/body/soul stuff is very very close to ideal. I heart my lifestyle! I worked hard to balance it like this. It's something I'm not very excited about risking.
Which is not to say it wouldn't be even better if my damn job was doing something good for the world, or for someone, true. :b
The right question [when considering a job] is not "What's the Crap Factor?" The right question is "How can I find something that moves my heart, so that the inevitable crap storm is bearable?" (p 143)
"To what can I devote my life?"
I can actually answer this partway. Creation. Design and creation. I realized at some point in '99 (and oh, how very much happened that year, didn't it) that I care more about the act of creation than what I'm creating. I realized that I break jobs down in different ways than some people. There's design-creation, creation-creation (actually building the whatever), maintenance, preservation, destruction, organizing, promotion, things like that. What the whatever is, doesn't or didn't matter that much to me, nor did the manner of creation. I'm still that way. The satisfaction of writing working code, nailing up a shelf in the kitchen, writing a poem that says what I meant, and drawing a picture, even assembling a team of people who work together well, is the same. So, I like to create software, and it's like crack compared to mechanical engineering because you can create a software thing so much faster than a physical thing, and it's hard to even consider it a career switch to go from mechanical design to software design.
But let's rephrase the question in light of what I know. What should I devote my life to creating? There, now THAT is something to work with and think about.
...it's okay, it's normal, to take many years before pursuing your calling... (p 158)
I find that comforting, and am starting to believe it is true. All I wanted when I first started working was money, and I wanted it for the security and (though less so) for the material stuff I could buy. Well, I have a lot more security now, and it's countable. Quantifiable. I love it. I also, thanks to this whole homeowner thing, finding myself wanting a lot more material stuff than I used to. I find myself wanting to keep that income coming. Is it bad to want to continue the cash flow for a while?
I started off so unapologetic about my need to nurture and spoil myself--I put in my time during childhood, thanks, and now I'm going to treat myself right. Lately I feel more guilty about that mindset, and I'm scared of becoming someone who won't take risks. But if that's an artifact of this whole 5-year artifical deadline thing... screw that. I have every right to take longer than that to decide, if I need that time to make the right decision or even if I want more money first. At least, I think so. Forcing it isn't going to help me think of anything better, faster--though of course it might at least shake loose my fear of changing at all.
What I need is maybe to see a risk worth taking, and since my job has started not-sucking, I may not see one right away. Just to be looking might do wonders for how I feel though.
The subtext to our conversations was the question, "When should I make peace with my ambition and settle down?" The one feeling everyone in this book has experienced is of missing out on life. For some people, this recognition leads them to pursue a dream; for others, it leads them to let the dream go. Sometimes that's the wisest choice. I'm not just paying these words lip service--I've seen both sides of chasing dreams.
True, and I find that Scary. To not have a dream is to not be open to having it crushed, as we probably all know from our dating days (whether or not those are over).
One of the things I've learned from this book is, don't pretend what you do doesn't shape you.
DSB has made me more political, more scared of projecting the wrong things about myself, more able to project what I want to project if I make the effort, more afraid of the big wide world (lots of people there seem to think it's better than other industry alternatives), much less ambitious in terms of titles and promotions, and of course more software-style geeky.
I don't like the fear theme there. I also hate the lack of ambition. The rest is okay.
"But what's right feel like?" she asked.
"Like it's the true story, not a made-up one."
"Am I supposed to be happy? Content? What should I be looking for?"
"I can tell you what people describe."
"What do they?"
"Like you're living your own genuine life, not someone else's. You stop comparing your life to some other imagined life in your head....The mind chatter stops, without being ordered to stop." (p 229)
Ooh, best description ever. There's no sound sweeter than the sound of mind chatter stopping. :)
Now, amazingly enough, I'm not done with the book, which makes this only Part 1 in a series. It should be a short series though, as there are only 50 pages left. At the end I do plan to touch the metaquestion, the question this question is begging: how important is it for our jobs to reflect our deepest selves anyway? (A lot, quite a large lot, of people just have day jobs and let their passions shine elsewhere, without guilt or mind chatter.) But that time is not right now.
Current mood: excited, because marriage licenses will be issued to gay people in a lousy 3.5 hours!
Current music: Take it easy, take it eeeeeasy... don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy...
For background for those who don't know, I started at DSB out of college in '99 after learning all about mechanical engineering. Career switch #1. I did it for a few reasons, but primarily because I wanted to stay in the city and figure out what was going on with HLM and me. I liked the five-year plan... stay at DSB for that long and I'd definitely be employable in software (check), and I'd know what was going on with HLM (check), and might have a better idea of what to do with my life (oh... shit). See, I had really, really, always-ever-since-99 planned to quit this year. But here is where the plan ends, and really, nothing's become much clearer. In some ways, all I've done is tie myself down--though that's just one perception. Another perception is that I'm free of student loans, free of worry about finding a partner and free of having a landlord who might raise rent on me at any point. Anyway...
I don't know anymore whether I'm gearing up for Career Switch #2, preparing to keep a similar job but switch industries (many, many days I think this is what I want), or just preparing to coast at DSB for another fair chunk of time and renovate my bathroom and enjoy my amazing new office. I no longer think I have to move right away, and I no longer think DSB is evil overall (though it is useless, and has done evil things). I never will think of it as my calling though, ever.
Say out loud:
"Flexagon worked for a stupid defense contractor for five years, then switched to having a meaningful job."
"Flexagon worked for a stupid defense contractor for seven years, then switched to having a meaningful job."
Not so different. Panic and hurry aren't needed. But I don't have any excuse to not be thinking about it anymore, either.
Pretend this is a quote from the book about the guy who had a Working Class Self and a College Grad Self, and had some internal class warfare as a result.
I've got this going on bigtime. Did you know how comfortable I feel in junkyards and machine shops? Do you know how much I resented my fellow MIT grads who seemed just like me and had the same education, but not the student loans? It was such a sharp reminder that I just don't come from the same planet as, well, them. The rich people. I saw a quote somewhere about how a poor person is always going to be a poor person, just (if they do well) a poor person with money. So true. And I, I have a piece of me that's so fucking happy to be sitting in this yuppie home right now, no machine grease anywhere, fairly neat, with real furniture to sit on instead of something my dad slapped together out of boards and logs... if you don't know, I can't even tell you. (Sordid details, anyone? Well, I grew up in a one-room 15 x 20 foot log cabin with a bare concrete floor. When I was 12 my dad added on a 16 x 16 addition to the house, and then I slept in there, so it got better, but I remember the one-room days very well.) I remember when my family was doing well, so well we could afford to go out for pizza once a week, and then later doing less well. That, I have to finally confess to myself, is still somewhat with me, though I try to avoid and ignore and deny it. But the other thing I didn't realize until recently is that that's the part of myself that can be more easily satisfied! That me got what she wanted all her life--she escaped, she is living nicely in a city and in a marriage not like her parents' and is making a nice home. That part of me feels so blessed it borders on guilty. That part of me had a talk with her mom last weekend about the times when it was even worse at home, before I was 5 and when, apparently, the house didn't have plumbing for hot water yet and my mom had to wash her hair in a pail of water heated up on the wood-burning stove she cooked on. Yikes, oh yikes. In just one generation we go from that to someone who feels resentful sometimes as she sits at her computer on her $800 Aeron chair. But this side of me does not resent the little things, or indeed the medium things.
The other me, MIT Grad, is not doing so badly, yet. But she also reads about the Lemelson winners and all the people starting businesses, and she wants sometimes to be featured in Tech Review. She wants greatness, has been told it's out there, but hasn't gathered up her courage for any such thing. Ideas come slowly and turn out not to be moneymakers. To satisfy this one is going to be harder. But that is me, too. I fought too long for the label (more backstory: I started wanting to go to MIT when I was seven, yes seven) not to claim the label. But how to live up to it, truly? Oh barf. Writing software for a stupid defense contractor forever sure isn't it.
And the two people fight.
I seriously think it might help me to write down a dialog between the two of them, sometime.
A lot of jobs can give you the quick rush--ER physician, currency trader, start-up junkie, concert promoter, grill cook--anything with a lot of risk or a furious amount of activity. But before you can label it your calling, it has to take on personal significance and be woven into the story of your life....
You don't find your purpose above the neck. If you use your brain to solve this problem, you'll usually end up with an answer that only makes your brain happy. (p. 49)
True, passion doesn't come from the head; although I think there's an incredibly strong tendency in our culture to make work our brainiest activity. How many people have a non-brainy job but challenge their brains much more in some other way? I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I don't know anyone who does it.
Writing and debugging software very much suits my creative and puzzle-solving tendencies. I would hate to stop using those parts of my brain for such large parts of the day, because I don't think I'd make up for the loss elsewhere. Not even if I joined book clubs and MENSA and the local chess club. It's just... unlikely. And I have to confess, my current balance of mind/body/soul stuff is very very close to ideal. I heart my lifestyle! I worked hard to balance it like this. It's something I'm not very excited about risking.
Which is not to say it wouldn't be even better if my damn job was doing something good for the world, or for someone, true. :b
The right question [when considering a job] is not "What's the Crap Factor?" The right question is "How can I find something that moves my heart, so that the inevitable crap storm is bearable?" (p 143)
"To what can I devote my life?"
I can actually answer this partway. Creation. Design and creation. I realized at some point in '99 (and oh, how very much happened that year, didn't it) that I care more about the act of creation than what I'm creating. I realized that I break jobs down in different ways than some people. There's design-creation, creation-creation (actually building the whatever), maintenance, preservation, destruction, organizing, promotion, things like that. What the whatever is, doesn't or didn't matter that much to me, nor did the manner of creation. I'm still that way. The satisfaction of writing working code, nailing up a shelf in the kitchen, writing a poem that says what I meant, and drawing a picture, even assembling a team of people who work together well, is the same. So, I like to create software, and it's like crack compared to mechanical engineering because you can create a software thing so much faster than a physical thing, and it's hard to even consider it a career switch to go from mechanical design to software design.
But let's rephrase the question in light of what I know. What should I devote my life to creating? There, now THAT is something to work with and think about.
...it's okay, it's normal, to take many years before pursuing your calling... (p 158)
I find that comforting, and am starting to believe it is true. All I wanted when I first started working was money, and I wanted it for the security and (though less so) for the material stuff I could buy. Well, I have a lot more security now, and it's countable. Quantifiable. I love it. I also, thanks to this whole homeowner thing, finding myself wanting a lot more material stuff than I used to. I find myself wanting to keep that income coming. Is it bad to want to continue the cash flow for a while?
I started off so unapologetic about my need to nurture and spoil myself--I put in my time during childhood, thanks, and now I'm going to treat myself right. Lately I feel more guilty about that mindset, and I'm scared of becoming someone who won't take risks. But if that's an artifact of this whole 5-year artifical deadline thing... screw that. I have every right to take longer than that to decide, if I need that time to make the right decision or even if I want more money first. At least, I think so. Forcing it isn't going to help me think of anything better, faster--though of course it might at least shake loose my fear of changing at all.
What I need is maybe to see a risk worth taking, and since my job has started not-sucking, I may not see one right away. Just to be looking might do wonders for how I feel though.
The subtext to our conversations was the question, "When should I make peace with my ambition and settle down?" The one feeling everyone in this book has experienced is of missing out on life. For some people, this recognition leads them to pursue a dream; for others, it leads them to let the dream go. Sometimes that's the wisest choice. I'm not just paying these words lip service--I've seen both sides of chasing dreams.
True, and I find that Scary. To not have a dream is to not be open to having it crushed, as we probably all know from our dating days (whether or not those are over).
One of the things I've learned from this book is, don't pretend what you do doesn't shape you.
DSB has made me more political, more scared of projecting the wrong things about myself, more able to project what I want to project if I make the effort, more afraid of the big wide world (lots of people there seem to think it's better than other industry alternatives), much less ambitious in terms of titles and promotions, and of course more software-style geeky.
I don't like the fear theme there. I also hate the lack of ambition. The rest is okay.
"But what's right feel like?" she asked.
"Like it's the true story, not a made-up one."
"Am I supposed to be happy? Content? What should I be looking for?"
"I can tell you what people describe."
"What do they?"
"Like you're living your own genuine life, not someone else's. You stop comparing your life to some other imagined life in your head....The mind chatter stops, without being ordered to stop." (p 229)
Ooh, best description ever. There's no sound sweeter than the sound of mind chatter stopping. :)
Now, amazingly enough, I'm not done with the book, which makes this only Part 1 in a series. It should be a short series though, as there are only 50 pages left. At the end I do plan to touch the metaquestion, the question this question is begging: how important is it for our jobs to reflect our deepest selves anyway? (A lot, quite a large lot, of people just have day jobs and let their passions shine elsewhere, without guilt or mind chatter.) But that time is not right now.
Current mood: excited, because marriage licenses will be issued to gay people in a lousy 3.5 hours!
Current music: Take it easy, take it eeeeeasy... don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy...
no subject
Date: 2004-05-23 05:55 pm (UTC)I don't know about you, but I grew up lonely and observing a bad marriage... I was very motivated to give time to my relationship right out of college, and I'm not exactly sorry to have that all sorted out. I wasn't about to join a startup or something anyway, with my student loans... I really wanted something steady. Always said I'd be more likely to do risky things when I had more money and stability, not when I had less, and I still feel that way. So, basically, I don't think we've totally screwed up just yet--we focused on things that weren't our careers, for a few years, is all. With any luck it won't turn out to be fatal.