déformation professionnelle https://wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9formation_professionnelle
What happens when your career becomes your whole identity
161–170 of 277 posts
Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity
#162This is a framework for thinking about resilience https://www.theresiliencedoughnut.com.au/.
In a nutshell if you build all your esteem from work, you only get 1/2 of the 7 factors i.e. Skill, Money. But you need at least 3 and ideally more to whether life's shocks. If you lose your job/career you might be left with zero. But if you also invest in say friends and community, losing your job is less of a blow.
Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is your takeaway? What did you mine from really thinking about the meaning and direction you want to take with your life? *clarification: I mean it earnestly, as I have not done anything that you have.
My takeaway is that I must make decisions and take action if I am to live the life I want, in a manner that makes me happy. Nobody else will do that for me, and if I live my life on autopilot I will be extraordinarily disappointed when I look back over my life and see that I never took life by the horns and charted my own course. It's on me, and that is equal measures exciting and (some days) terrifying. I lost my Mu…
If you only make enough to help yourself then you have nothing left over to help others.
Making a good amount of money and then giving it away to causes that can meaningful help others is a highly underrated pursuit.
Aimlessly traveling is not happiness. I predict you’ll learn that lesson soon.
Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
All very impressive -- hope this guy is as happy as his scrupulously cultivated brand requires and celebrates. But I wonder if this represents a cautionary tale -- someone who took their non-"desk job" and assiduously commoditized their adventures. The 110% workaholism never stopped. Click here to buy the book, follow the instagram, subscribe to the YouTube. Or maybe this is what can happen if you don't indulge your…
Your comment reminded me of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s thoughts - how wanderlust can keep us from leading meaningful lives. Worth a read: https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2019/04/wanderlust-keeps-...
We probably need an antidote to the current instagram driven travel as consumption lifestyles, but I think they protest a little too much. Most people who go full nomad seem to realize quite well on their own after a year or two that no matter how much they learn, being always rootless and disconnected is not a great life and go back to build a life in one place. Most people aren’t privileged enough to even get this far but for the ones who want to why stop them? Some of my most memorable times have been travelling/living abroad but I realize indefinite travel would not be great.
Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity
#165In my experience extreme workaholism can often be a way to avoid or defer major life decisions that someone doesn't want to make or even consciously recognize. High status careers are often structured, full of positive feedback loops, and well compensated, all of which can strengthen the urge to defer existential questions about meaning, purpose, community, and identity until some unspecified future date, even (perha…
It’s interesting you say that... arguably I am an extreme workaholic, I work 70+ hours every week. I learn all I can on top of that. I get satisfaction from it, but it’s not my identity. If I was a janitor, I’d try to be the best janitor, because that’s what I like doing, I like being good at my job. I also plan 2 years out and intend to have $X wealth by specific deadlines. I’ll work harder to reach it. For me, as I…
> Remember investments grow exponentially- meaning you want to invest as much as you can while you’re young(er)
*grow geometrically (with apologies, am pedant)
Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity
#166In my experience extreme workaholism can often be a way to avoid or defer major life decisions that someone doesn't want to make or even consciously recognize. High status careers are often structured, full of positive feedback loops, and well compensated, all of which can strengthen the urge to defer existential questions about meaning, purpose, community, and identity until some unspecified future date, even (perha…
Existentialism is a trap. Camus pretty much nailed it but here it is in comic/essay form: https://moretothat.com/the-meaning-of-life-is-absurd/
Absurd nihilism is not a get out of jail free card for existentialism. It's a structure to answer the existential question in the same way Nietzsche's answers are a structure or any of the other philosophers. It has a fundamental axiom at the bottom and a logic that blossoms out of it. Saying there is 'no meaning' is to answer the question with avoiding the question to begin with.
Writer's block / drawer's block happens when you don't have a structure for your ideas. Nearly any structure you can think of can be useful for starting work. Hero's journey can be used to prop up your ideas like a tack weld until you get something better.
The character in the article cannot get their ideas out because they do not have a structure for their work, their ideas and their existence. One answer is to lump your existence into the "nothing" category and another answer is to see how deep the rabbit hole of existence goes and come out with your own thoughts, structures and opinions.
The point of reading philosophers is not to become them, but to develop your own perspective. It's not a trap, it's a necessity.
Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity
#167Bad article, in part because of the incomplete title. It should be called "What happens when your career becomes your whole identity, when you don't like your job and think it's a waste of time". If this latter part is not true, there is much less of a problem, but for some reason current mainstream American culture wants to extrapolate all the way to "work should be compartmentalized and minimized". The problem is,…
What makes you think that young people will listen to anything you tell them?
Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity
#168In my experience extreme workaholism can often be a way to avoid or defer major life decisions that someone doesn't want to make or even consciously recognize. High status careers are often structured, full of positive feedback loops, and well compensated, all of which can strengthen the urge to defer existential questions about meaning, purpose, community, and identity until some unspecified future date, even (perha…
I think it doesn’t need to be due to deferring major life decisions, but rather just youth and inexperience. I spent a few years of my life working 80+ hour weeks, advancing my career. It wasn’t due to deferring some life decisions but rather was just something I felt I needed to do to prove myself and get ahead. I’ve since grown out of this, but I notice this in other younger people around me. Super enthusiastic, al…
So the question is then if that phase is truly necessary for success or not. A lot of people say, "They grew out of it," but then to look at people who "know their worth and limits" early, they're not nearly as successful, on average. Part of that is that if you're not seen to be working hard, no matter how effective you are, you will not be seen to be effective, and will not reap the rewards of that effectiveness; the people calling the shots will not have it. So, if the expectation is overwork, and it is necessary to advance, is that something untenable to how work in America should be? Or, on some level, do we like it or view it as serving a purpose?
Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is your takeaway? What did you mine from really thinking about the meaning and direction you want to take with your life? *clarification: I mean it earnestly, as I have not done anything that you have.
My takeaway is that I must make decisions and take action if I am to live the life I want, in a manner that makes me happy. Nobody else will do that for me, and if I live my life on autopilot I will be extraordinarily disappointed when I look back over my life and see that I never took life by the horns and charted my own course. It's on me, and that is equal measures exciting and (some days) terrifying. I lost my Mu…
Clear thinking and good priorities.
I found it difficult until recently to make decisions about career and money, mostly because of the way status and security are attached to them.
Giving that up has been really hard, but as I’ve learned to live with less security, my happiness and freedom have increased to the point where I’m happier than I’ve been since I was a kid.
Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is your takeaway? What did you mine from really thinking about the meaning and direction you want to take with your life? *clarification: I mean it earnestly, as I have not done anything that you have.
‘I don't want to be at work making someone else rich. I want to spend those remaining 30 years enjoying myself and bringing happiness to those in my life’ How do you expect to live out those 30 years without working consistently? Do you have means of enough passive income ?
You can still do it even if you don’t really want to. That’s pretty much the definition of work regardless.