Moral of my story (and this article), is stay competitive, you don’t have to crush it, but don’t lean back too far either.
There are a large number of people, including smart and successful and accomplished people, who work to live, not live to work.
For the people who live to work (myself included), it's a good reminder to stay competitive and avoid complacency. But you have to understand yourself and what you're looking for. And that's what I think the real moral of the story is: understand what you want, what makes you happy, and what gives you meaning and purpose. Then make sure you're working towards that. Too many people forget to do the first thing and skip straight to the second because they inherit the answer from their environment without questioning it.
For lots of people the answer to that question is not career related.
What you or I want is no longer a question afforded to us sadly.
Indeed the economy doesn't, but, my dear friend, that's not the point.
You're not the economy, and you can't escape the shell you were born in (yet). You only get to choose which game you play. So, my dear friend, if you're going to lose the game anyway, at least pick a game you actually want to play.
_We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for._
PS: how good was that movie?! So Good!
Here's a poem I wrote back in high school in reaction to the famous quote, "Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads", which I was taught was by Emily Dickinson but turns out to actually be by Marianne Moore. In any case...
A poem is a thought that tried
In vain, just once, before it died
To reach the page's
Right hand side
They're only words, and always spoken
much too late to stay
-- only for a moment,
then they take the breath awayThat’s when you got to get real.
The romanticism of good faith and idealism is romantic, but a lot of good expression is rooted in despair. I see despair in that anecdote, the desperate plea of ‘don’t you see what I feel?’. We have to infer that such an unstated thing needed to be dramatically expressed, for no other reason than catharsis. Which leads us to the conclusion that, yes, there is a story of sadness here.
I just finished watching Manolis Kellis explain [0] how computational biology is transforming our understanding of the human genome and changing how we treat diseases. Who will argue that this is not a gripping story of how humanity has risen in it's ability to understand how the world works and consequently to control it. This exciting adventure has both passion in the seekers and beauty in what they have found. And of course there are endless songs (e.g., [1][2]) already written about this noble pursuit.
[0] "Decoding a Genomic Revolution: Manolis Kellis at TEDxCambridge" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlVZ0ORtpPM [1] "The Molecular Shape of You (Ed Sheeran Parody)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8FAJXPBdOg [2] "A Capella Science - Rolling in the Higgs (Adele Parody)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtItBX1l1VY
I'm genuinely curious: Are there periods of history where people could choose what to go into without it having a large effect on their income or quality of life? From my point of view, it seems like our standard of living is at an all-time high and our freedom to choose what we do with our lives is unprecedented. But I'd be open to being shown empirical evidence to the contrary.
Remember the 50s in America? That lasted forever right? You don’t need empirical evidence for this, the hard data is there on a variety of industries.
If you believe we’re immune to these forces you’ve got another thing coming.
If you want to reach the top of your field then sure, you always have to be hustling. But for the rest of us we are lucky to be in a field where there is a degree of comfort and flexibility.
Are you depressed?
One needs to stay competent, if not competitive, to stay employable, even for moderately advanced and moderately-paid positions. There's no chance to learn the craft and expect it to stay the same for a lifetime.
if you are reasonably competent you can get a boring coding job at a large firm that pays probably twice the average national salary.
Software development pays so well compared to other sectors and is so starved for workers pretty much always, and unemployment is basically nonexistent, I think like the author you might confuse "working hat hip startup XY and making 200k" with being employable and living comfortably
The parent's point is that there are more aspects in life than work that you can improve on (eating healthier would be one of them). And as long as your work can sustain your life, you are free to choose to work on something else.
Of course, you can choose to focus even more on working, too, if you please.
My hair is increasingly gray, and I'm a person who has always been motivated by challenge, and never by money. The notion of poverty is somewhat terrifying to me, because I'm keenly aware of my motivations. "Find a job" is not a satisfying challenge.
I'm nowhere near retirement -- by which I mean, if my income tracks with inflation, I'll be able to comfortably retire about 5 years before I expect to die of cancer.
I can't trust my company. I can't trust them to stay afloat. I can't trust them to retain me if their funding droops again.
I live very economically; my biggest luxury expenditures are food and I could easily cut those. I really don't give a shit about money, but I have a kid and that's a big expense.
So unemployment is scary. Staying competitive brings peace of mind, and it's a game that I can challenge myself with; that I get satisfaction from.
No, the point is to be able to get another job if you lose your current one.
Perhaps you are projecting your own beliefs?
Plenty of people choose careers for other reasons e.g. that give them personal satisfaction, or a career that revolves around their belief system.
The article still applies even if their career goals are neither status nor money.