211–214 of 214 posts
The first thing you need to do is accept that you can't have everything you're looking for and that you have to explicitly decide on the tradeoffs you're comfortable with. The best writing on this subject comes from Tim Urban, in this lengthy but worthwhile essay: https://waitbutwhy.com/2018/04/picking-career.html .
In my case, it was important to balance having a job I enjoyed with a family life that left me plenty of time with children, and never to work at a job that I thought would embarrass my family.
YMMV, but the point is I never ended up in a position where I had worked 20 years and found no fulfillment, or burned me out, or left me divorced, or left me with children who didn’t want to hang around me.
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Great comment! I find it even more moving in waterson style comic form: https://www.gocomics.com/zen-pencils/2014/06/23
Haha- ok. I love how he is nerding out on the dinosaur and next we see his girlfriend. This is not what happens in real life.
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I have a great counterpoint quote from Edward Abbey: "One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt an…
> hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space I like to keep in mind this romantic i MaDe tRaVeLinG a LifEstYle BS is enabled by the folks who are typically working the…
> It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it.
He does not literally advise you to hunt fish. He advises you to to enjoy the fruits of your work.