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Career Advice (2013)

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Re: Career Advice (2013)

#151

Post by xyzelement »

chinchilla2020 wrote: post #147
xyzelement wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this to not be a helpful frame of thinking. A divorce is not a random natural disaster that befalls you. You have a lot of control about who you end up with, who you are inside and how you engage with your partner. So the fact that divorce happens "often" or "rarely" doesn't matter to an individual scenario - it's completely within those people's controls to make good or bad decisions.

Divorce happens often and the rates are climbing. It makes sense to follow statistical guidelines. "Who you marry" is not in your control. People change over the years. Marriage changes your spouse, and yourself. Some people realize what they actually want as they mature. Most of the smartest, most thoughtful people in the world get divorced. They all thought they had control over marriage.

// "Who you marry" is not in your control.

There's a huge difference between "not at all" or "not fully" in my control. I can't guarantee my outcome, but I have deep influence over my chances.

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#152

Post by badpun »

FFP999 wrote: post #144
badpun wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly right. For example, I decided I prefer to live on $500-$1000 a month to having to work more years. So, I retired as soon as I could afford $1k till the rest of my life. It's not a life rich in material goods, but, in my experience, the stuff that brings me the most value is super cheap, and after that it's mostly diminishing returns.

Interesting, if you don't mind sharing a little, what do you do with your time?

It's been only 10 months now. So far, I've played a lot of my favorite video games, read books, fixed some things around the apartment, learned a lot of new cooking recipes, tried my hand at new programming areas (however, I'm pretty spent there, as I've explored a lot in previous years already), watched a lot of youtube and tv shows. It's a bit boring, but beats working. All in all, not a very active lifestyle, but I think that's me. I just don't have a lot of motivation to do things beyond what's necessary, and was always like that.

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#153

Post by scns »

hosteur wrote: post #145
scns wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read this in a management magazine: One third of retiring managers die quickly thereafter. The socond third finds a hobby and pursues it with the same ambition until everyone they know got gifted a perfect ship in a bottle and they need a new way to spend their time. One third keeps working. [Edit] add header

That’s just sad.

That is a judgment on your part. There is no retirement in nature. If you keep doing what you love when you are "retired", it will be to your benefit. Both my parents teach, my father does something he likes for the first time i think. Could call it sad but why?

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#154

Post by red-iron-pine »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #59
CalRobert wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did it myself, and right after college. It worked out OK, and I know now that making friends in your 20's is 10 times easier in your 30's, and in your 30's is ten times easier than in your 40's (though if you have kids in school that can help a little as you meet other kids' parents) But why not do it _in_ college?

It's pretty hard to move between countries when you're in college. The credit transfer situation is pretty tough. People do it, though. That's why most of the foreign students at any given college beat the pants off of the locals. I speak from experience :D

lotta universities love to charge foreign students more, tho that's mostly 1st world; if you can speak Arabic you can get some good deals on schooling.

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#155

Post by Swizec »

badpun wrote: post #107
Swizec wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few people regret not working more. Almost everyone regrets not having achieved more.

> Almost everyone regrets not having achieved more. Depends on the culture. This my be true in the US, but most other cultures aren't as obsessed with achieving.

You get to define "achievement" however you want here. It can mean spending more time with kids, if that's what you care about!

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#156

Post by blinkingled »

mannycalavera42 wrote: post #150
blinkingled wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a way after 45 the rush and ocd of younger, inexperienced years subsides you do see life at a slower pace, take more in and that can be a satisfying thing. For me personally the quality vs quantity thing that came more into focus in my 40s.

for me personally my 45 have been a full throttle. Lived in 4 countries in the last two years, learned tons of stuff and met super cool people. The "45 years old's salary" enabled that. In the last two months I've been learning surfing in my spare time. Total woah. Looking forward to the years to come, it's not true that quantity doesn't have quality :)

Woah indeed :) You seem to have figured out how to have tons of quality time.. I mostly was thinking about my personal happiness being in less and me discovering that in my 40s after other things slowed down a bit in life - having a partner and kids you kind of don't always have total control over your life.

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#157

Post by red-iron-pine »

moffkalast wrote: post #97
Swizec wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved countries soon after college with not even a job lined up. From Slovenia straight into SFBA because if you're gonna do something that hard, you might as well go all the way. To anyone asking if they should do the same, I say: Don't do it. Because if you have to ask, the answer is no. The ones who succeed don't ask for permission, they ask for tips about how to get it done. The mind is already made up. Same is…

As a fellow Slovenian who's also worked with Americans, the last part is both hilarious and real. It's just such a weirdly large cultural difference in general behaviour that's hard to explain. I would personally find it near impossible to adapt to that always-fake-cheerful attitude that's common on the west coast.

For the record, that's just the West Coast. East Coast ain't like that.

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#158

Post by 93po »

foobarqux wrote: post #20
climatekid wrote: post #3

The Stanford prison experiments are pretty well debunked at this point

Were they debunked? I thought that they only had some methodological mistake which made them inconclusive.

An experiment that has no scientific rigor can never have any meaningful results to draw conclusions from.

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#159

Post by miguelazo »

jppope wrote: post #30
miguelazo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but the larger point stands: your job has a huge influence on who you become. And the organization's mission and culture also will impact your identity. I have seen a lot of former colleagues make a lot of gross compromises for career advancement over the years. People who wanted to make a positive difference in the world who end up working for weapons manufacturers and the intelligence agency cutouts that crea…

Strong disagree. I am reminded of the quote: "If you don't have a plan of your own you'll become part of someone else's plan." Your job has as much of an influence on who you become as you let it have... the contention that you are your job really shows nothing more than a lack of ambition.

Not sure where you have worked, but that's not most people's experience. You can have all the ambition in the world and with the wrong environment or culture you will slam into a brick wall very quickly. And sure, you can change jobs if your skillset is in demand, but guess what-- most other orgs function exactly the same. In fact, the people who are willing to compromise themselves most are often the ones who get ahead. That might be what some consider "ambition."

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#160

Post by miguelazo »

threeseed wrote: post #9
miguelazo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but the larger point stands: your job has a huge influence on who you become. And the organization's mission and culture also will impact your identity. I have seen a lot of former colleagues make a lot of gross compromises for career advancement over the years. People who wanted to make a positive difference in the world who end up working for weapons manufacturers and the intelligence agency cutouts that crea…

> create the conditions for our forever wars If there were no weapons manufacturers or intelligence agencies you would still have wars. Humanity always finds a way to resolve disputes through violence and aggression.

>If there were no weapons manufacturers or intelligence agencies you would still have wars.

There would be far less of them.

>Humanity always finds a way to resolve disputes through violence and aggression.

This has been the case for a long time, doesn't mean it will persist forever. For example, slavery is mostly illegal and stamped out (except in Libya, one of the victims of US "intelligence" complex's forever war) compared to less than two centuries ago, which is a blink of an eye for human history.

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