March 29, 2003

What Should I Do with My Life?

I finished the book last night and also happened to listen to Tesla's Greatest Hitsll. What you give summarizes the book in one line: "It ain't the life you choose, it's the life you live." The book spoke to me in three significant ways: (1) don't take a job for the prestige/money and hope to finance a greater passion later on; (2) you become your environment (The Grotto sounds like fun); and (3) business is a tool to support what you believe. The following provides excerpts from parts of the book that I tabbed:

This book is not about what it's like to do certain jobs. There's a touch of the, inevitably, but I discovered such information isn't helpful. It doesn't drive decisions. People who had been through a lot reported that they changed their life, or got clarity, when they became conscious of what kind of person a certain job/industry/lifestyle was turning them into. So the relevant question is not what you will do, but who you will become. What belief system will you adopt, and what will take on heightened importance in your life? This personalizes stakes and makes it a lot harder to lie to oneself and ignore the points of conflict.

If you think starting a business is like winning the Lotto, something that you gamble on and luck into, and whoopee, then Lotto odds are about your odds. But if you develop the character--then yeah, the odds are pretty darn good you'll succeed.

Character came up a lot in this book.

I couldn't take it seriously. If I was financially independent, I would never have to take work I didn't want to do. But to become financially independent, I had to take work I didn't want to do. Two years would lead to five years, and then I'd be like one of Don Linn's old friends. Why waste years trying to game the system? Why fabricate excuses for why I should stick at a job that wasn't, ultimately, the real me.

Dream. Lockbox. Fuck You money. Lockbox. Dream
That cold, calculated formula.
Rarer than I ever imagined.

The stereotype is that domineering parents push their kids to succeed, killing their children's love for whatever they're studying. But the opposite was far more common - young people who were given too much leeway by parents afraid of being overbearing, when their children really needed help in identifying what was important to them. It's difficult terrain, no doubt.

Why do so many people hush the longing to be someone different? It's not because they have to pay their student loans. It's not because the economy is in a lull. It's not because they don't have notions of what they'd like to be. It's because they don't want to be the kind of person who abandons friends and takes up with a new crowd.

When you stop pointing fingers,
Lying to yourself and others,
When you give yourself to the hungry,
And satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
Then your light will ride through darkness,
And your gloom will rise as the noonday sun,
And you'll continually find the desires of your heart in
scorched and dry places and strength in your bones,
And finally become like a watered garden,
Like a spring whose waters never fail.

Chi wrote me, "Call me romantic, but deep down I want to be great. I want to believe in a cause or an idea bigger than my individual financial or career progress. Deep down, that's why I can't get myself to look seriously at law or business school applications. Tell me, is there really anything - anything at all - 'great' about working for a firm or corporation? And so here I am, chasing greatness."

The situation that got them in trouble is replayed in conversation, moment by moment, and the students are repeatedly asked how they could have handled the moment differently. It's drilled into them that they make choices. They become aware, and they stop acting without thinking.

Imagine making that significant a contribution - saving twenty-thousand lives a year. Joe didn't invent a cure. He discovered what was already there, and in that sense, he was lucky, but he never would have discovered if he wasn't looking for it. I think that's a fairly good illustration of how to live up to your own notions of a Big Picture - it doesn't require genius or heroics. You'll discover something if you keep looking.

Bureaucracies didn't behave like bureaucracies when he came calling. The waters parted. Deni Leonard said it's because he speaks their language. "They hang funny things on the wall and speak a language you can't understand," he said. "They have ways of doing things. If you respect their ways, they'll work for you. If you respect their sovereignty, they'll continue to help you."

The two stories that spoke the most to me were of Deni Leonard, from immediately above, and John Benson.

Posted by AJR at March 29, 2003 03:21 PM