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What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

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Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#271

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

csallen wrote: post #257
alisonatwork wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great career advice, but by the end of your comment it felt like it went in a circle that leads back to the status quo. If humans really need to work to find fulfilment, then why bother trying to find fulfilment outside of work? I don't hate my job. It's okay. I'm pretty good at it. The pay is fine. If this is as good as it gets - the joy of seeing someone you're mentoring "get it", the pleasure of getting a…

I can't speak to what we need to find fulfillment. I haven't met many people who've said, "I'm fulfilled." And is fulfillment even the right goal? Once you reach it, is it not something you must constantly strive to maintain, or at least avoid losing? We have a significant divide between working and living that I personally hope to erase, or at least minimize, in my own life. I've had some success this year, mostly t…

> We have a significant divide between working and living that I personally hope to erase, or at least minimize, in my own life

This, in a nutshell, is why I plan to never retire. "Retirement" for me is finding a business that holds my attention enough to want to do it for the rest of my life. Right now it has to fit into the interstitial bits of time between "day job" and "family time" and "sleep."

BTW: I love your podcast!

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#272

Post by marmaduke »

overgard wrote: post #50

I was just rereading this Last Psychiatrist article that this really reminds me of: https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2014/01/randi_zuckerberg.htm... (Like with all of TLP it meanders a lot and will probably piss you off. It's also highly entertaining!) This is the important bit: > One of our time's great sociological questions is why we filled downtime back up with work, and the reason is it's better than alcoholism.…

That was a great read. I think structures mentioned therein like the medium is the message, the form of the argument vs consequences are excellent examples of cognitive or linguistic framing, ripe for hacking

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#273

Post by sjg007 »

nugget wrote: post #177
sjg007 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today it is pretty well established that it is your thoughts create your emotions. Dabrowski was on the path to discovering this but he missed the latent variable here and was too focused on having an individual having a crisis in order to bring about positive change which is not necessary or required.

Certain individuals may not require an existential crisis to achieve the uppermost stage of conscious integration but for others (most) I believe it to be absolutely necessary.

What exactly is an existential crisis? What differentiates it from a regular crisis?

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#274

Post by Winterflow3r »

2sk21 wrote: post #103
samstave wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, as I got older, lost passion for what I had been doing for 20 years - and being on the old end of the ageism-specrum-stick... it is hard to deal with. I have left 'Silicon Valley Tech' -- as I am no longer interested in any of the things I did before and seek positions which are more fulfilling in other industries and pay about 25% of what I used to make...

I have a PhD in machine learning and have had a fairly productive career now spanning almost thirty years. Even a few years ago, I used think that I would keep at it indefinitely. Lately however, I'm finding that the field simply just does not interest me as much as it used to. Contributing to this is the knowledge that I am financially independent - I just don't need to work at this point. I'm planning to quit later…

Can I ask why you are not interested in the field anymore? It seems to be having a major, major renaissance at the moment.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#275

Post by AmeliaR »

AmeliaR wrote: post #253

life is not all about a career. Life is about a lot of things, but it is mostly about the people in it. The people that you begin with, and the people that you meet along the way. The people that are there when things go bad, and the people that are there to rejoice in your success. It's these people that make life worth living.

https://jfi.uno/jiofilocalhtml https://adminlogin.co/tplinklogin/ https://isitdown.top/

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#276

Post by DavidRicupero »

tempsy wrote: post #197
alisonatwork wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does traveling non-stop make you feel like you're side-stepping your role in society? One of the things i like best about traveling is that i have the time and mental energy to engage with the people around me. I eat at restaurants, i go to bars, i listen and share stories, i'll contribute to the local economy and perhaps put a smile on someone's face. When i am working i suppose you could say i am contributing t…

Solo travel is an inherently selfish pursuit. You are just consuming, and not creating anything of value for society.

Travel has made me a better version. My worldview was so small before. After it, I've learned we are more of a global village than separate nations.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#277

Post by 2sk21 »

Winterflow3r wrote: post #274
2sk21 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a PhD in machine learning and have had a fairly productive career now spanning almost thirty years. Even a few years ago, I used think that I would keep at it indefinitely. Lately however, I'm finding that the field simply just does not interest me as much as it used to. Contributing to this is the knowledge that I am financially independent - I just don't need to work at this point. I'm planning to quit later…

Can I ask why you are not interested in the field anymore? It seems to be having a major, major renaissance at the moment.

Gary Marcus has articulated it much better than I could in his new book with Ernie Davis: https://www.amazon.com/Rebooting-AI-Building-Artificial-Inte...

I really dislike the single minded focus on deep learning to the exclusion of everything else.

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