SYL 138: So Good They Can't Ignore You
Added 2016-04-23 14:36:18 +0000 UTCOr no, I don't think Cal Newport really buys the idea that following your passion will actually allow you to be happy and eat and stuff. Also: happy World Book Day, and Shakespeare's birthday, and happy 5th birthday to Stuff You Like and Ursa!
Comments
The enter key throws me too. :) My experience was that schools were keen on telling you what you needed to enter a profession: law, medicine, engineering, that sort of thing. They also tended to encourage Doing Lots Of Things...as in, extracurricular activities/hobbies, because those made you look like a Rounded Person Who Would Do Well At Life. I don't think I've ever met anyone who had no hobbies at all. That's got to suck. But they still made you do the tick-box tests where you could figure out what you liked doing and suggested careers based on that. (Side note: how does a 16 year old know if they're detail-oriented or whatever? If you only have yourself to compare to? Anyway.) University...well, my university had a lot of great resources if you wanted to be an investment banker. Other things too, but there was a definite focus on professions there too. But having entered the world of non-scholastic career advice, the only thing I ever saw was 'follow your passion!' Which is not quite useless advice, but...it's close. It seems like if one takes career advice from one's school, then one will end up in a profession of long standing (or something 'fashionable' like electronics), and if one takes career advice from career advice columns/websites/places that sell career advice, one will end up unsuccessfully teaching yoga or selling handmade handbags or something. I think passions are incredibly important. I just don't think they should necessarily be things that we do for a job. (I'd be a terrible professional baker, but my cookies are pretty good, if I do say so myself.) Schools, of course, are now so concerned with teaching to the test that there's very little time for 'extraneous' activities that you might actually enjoy.
Jill Bearup
2016-04-25 10:57:07 +0000 UTCYes! Thank you! My husband is completely hung up on finding something *meaningful* in a job that will give you *purpose* - which works for him, and that's great. I want to go to work, do a good job, come home and forget about it - so I can spend the rest of my time writing and knitting and reading and running and other cool stuff. But, somehow, along the way, I have found my niche in the working world - I'm a University Complaints Officer, and I (mostly) really like it. It involves lots of things I'm really good at (organising information, ensuring good service levels, attention to detail) and my level of responsibility is exactly at the level I'm happy with (ie very little). So, whilst I've never wanted a *career* as such, I seem to have found myself in a job I'm passionate about simply because I'm good at it, and I take pride in that achievement.
Alobear
2016-04-25 09:55:13 +0000 UTCDoes anyone really get urged to follow their passion? Maybe I just went to a particularly toxic school (I don't think so, I think it was pretty typical of middle class schools in the northern US) but the message was always "Get serious and focus on what's going to pay your bills." Kids were constantly being pushed away from anything they were interested in. To the point where there was a big conflict between the administration and parents because the Guidance office was refusing to send out transcripts to colleges and universities if they judged that a student was applying to a school they had no hope of getting in to. They particularly targeted the kids who were into math because the money was all going to be in electronics and we were all supposed to be taking the special robotics and computer programming courses they'd created. When I had my mandatory meeting with the head of guidance about where I was going to apply, she told me I had to major in English because that's what I'd tested well in, even though as I pointed out to her I'd failed every English course I'd ever taken (with the exception of Gothic Tales and Fantasy Lit) and loathed classic literature. I pointed out that my science grades were amazing and that I really wanted to go to a school with a focus on environmental sciences because that's what really interested me. She told me there were no jobs for people with degrees in environmental science and that (exact words) "College isn't about learning, it's about proving to future employees that you were willing to invest the time and money in something serious." My best friend in high school spent the entire time following that AP computer engineering track and going to an incredibly expensive school for it all because it was supposed to get her a high paying job, but then 2008 came and the jobs program she was a part of was shut down and the market fell out of computers and all she had were skills in a field she hated and a bunch of low paying temp jobs with no benefits. When I asked her what she could do that might make her happy, just as a side hobby not even as a career, she couldn't think of anything because she'd never had a chance to try anything so impractical as a hobby. That's one anecdote, but I'm constantly alarmed by how everyone I went to school with is struggling, not just because of the bad economy but because they don't even know what to do with themselves. They don't even know if they like baking or knitting. I think encouraging people to follow their passions is incredibly important, because there's nothing sadder then a bunch of people turning 30 and realizing that they're not passionate about anything. Sorry that was long and might be double commented. The way the enter key works on Patreon always throws me off.
De
2016-04-25 03:56:57 +0000 UTC
