theprestonator writes:

In todays day and age, ones job seems almost inseperable from ones self. Most times when someone meets you for the first time one of the first questions they will ask is: what is your job?

This fact, and the crippling lack of attention payed to the necessities of life (mostly because they are handed to us on a platter) means that job choice is one of the seemingly biggest decisions you make in terms of your place in society.

This pisses me off. I want to try loads of different shit, I want to be a musician for a month, then maybe next month I’ll be a teacher… Then maybe a month later I wont work.

Alot of people who give you advice against this kind of lifestyle will say your not thinking in the long term, don’t you want a comfortable lifestyle?

Man, fuck your comfortable lifestlye. I think this kind of thinking needs to be nurtured, not knocked down. Theres too much out there to commit to one thing for too long. Perhaps I’m a special case, maybe I’m way to impatient or have some deep seated fear of commitment but new shit just grabs my attention more than old shit.

Here’s what I think.

When someone asks you what you do you may hear them asking what your job is, but often they’re just trying to find what makes you interesting. For better or worse you spend a substantial fraction your time focusing on your vocation so it is a good proxy for what makes you interesting.

Sure, the world is full of interesting people and places but there is more to life than novel experiences. The problem with doing something for just a month is that while it is interesting it doesn’t really help you to develop. Anyone can be a musician for a month but it took The Beatles a lot longer than that.

When you decide what to work on you’re making a decision about your personal development — the direction you want to grow, the skills you’re going to develop, and the options you’re going to have in the future. You’re choosing the person you will become.

Experiences and development are not mutually exclusive either. I’ve found that interesting experiences tend to follow from taking on tough challenges, so optimise for that. Travel is fun and you should do it, but know that true fulfilment comes from working on hard things and eventually succeeding at them.

What would you work on if you didn’t have to worry about money? Your career should be a chain of things that were the most interesting things you could possibly work on at the time. That’s why you should start working on something. It is a commitment, and I always worried about that, but it’s less of a commitment than you think. You can always move on to something else when you figure out what it is, but in my experience one opportunity tends to lead to the next.

In summary, I think you should try all of those things you want to try, but I also think you should find ways to make them a side effect of your personal development — a side effect of doing the things that make you interesting. Life is short and you only get one chance; we don’t get enough time to do all the things we want to do, but waiting for the best option to come along is just another way to waste time.