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Quitting your job to pursue your passion is a privilege

janellequibuyen.com

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Re: Quitting your job to pursue your passion is a privilege

#21

Post by sharemywin »

ravenstine wrote: post #13

Life is full of trade-offs, and sometimes the choices you make don't work out. The author sounds pissed off because they took a risk that didn't work out, so he's telling everyone that it's objectively "bullshit" to make himself feel better about his lack of success like it's someone else's fault. The fact is that both the haves and the have-nots take these kind of risks all the time, and few succeed. But some do and…

The power law of failure exists, though. For every 1 success there are 9 failures for every facebook there are millions of failures. If your not prepared for that you'll be the guy calling bullshit.

Re: Quitting your job to pursue your passion is a privilege

#22

Post by spdionis »

ben_jones wrote: post #4
FreedomToCreate wrote: post #2

Passion without genuine skill and knowledge is useless. You can be passionate about many things, for example cars, but unless you put in the hours, your passion doesn't mean you will be a great car engineer, or automotive company executive. [EDIT] Also want to add that people grossly underestimate the responsibility of being their own boss. There are a lot of tasks you have to handle outside of your usual work like f…

I think of this every time I come across one of those motivation videos on youtube. It'll have like twenty million views, how many of those people actually took it to heart?

Which reminds me of TED talks which are pinnacle of "fakeness" and bullshit in our society.

Well, most of them at least.

Re: Quitting your job to pursue your passion is a privilege

#23

Post by sharemywin »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #8
cloudjacker wrote: post #3

so this isn't the obvious "duh" post tl;dr OP quit their job because they were depressed, got bombarded with quips about how courageous they were, got seduced by conflating their depression with a courageous career choice, then talks about what caused other people to be so excited for them when entrepreneurial endeavors is a privilege reserved for the upper class, instead of a practical social contract of the America…

I agree with your summary, that's what the author is stating, though I don't think the conclusion is true. The best way to start becoming an entrepreneur is to start small. The mantra 'fail early, fail often' is useful, but only if you have the resources to apply it more than once, which means that assuming you're not rich you should start small. Start a side project, do consulting work in your spare time, etc... It'…

I agree with that to don't gamble you have on something. Of course investors want you to because there's no downside to them.

Re: Quitting your job to pursue your passion is a privilege

#24

Post by shopkins »

Animats wrote: post #18

"We are predatorily luring working class people into an entrepreneur lifestyle as the answer to living a meaningful life and loads of money. It’s the new American Dream." Yes. Being an entrepreneur is about selling. Few people are good at selling. If you're good at selling, you can make good money doing it for someone else. Expecting most people to be good at selling is a cruel fantasy.

What was the old American Dream, if not exactly that?

Re: Quitting your job to pursue your passion is a privilege

#25

Post by FreedomToCreate »

ravenstine wrote: post #13

Life is full of trade-offs, and sometimes the choices you make don't work out. The author sounds pissed off because they took a risk that didn't work out, so he's telling everyone that it's objectively "bullshit" to make himself feel better about his lack of success like it's someone else's fault. The fact is that both the haves and the have-nots take these kind of risks all the time, and few succeed. But some do and…

I don't think you understood the point of the OP's article. This article is calling out the motivation and entrepreneurship gurus who push the idea of entrepreneurship like its some kind of way to unbind yourself and become truly free to people who don't fully understand what it means.

Re: Quitting your job to pursue your passion is a privilege

#26

Post by noelwelsh »

Couldn't agree more. I had a few rough years in business, that I only got through due to various forms of good luck (my business partner, my domestic partner, no debts, etc.)

Two other points I think are relevant.

First, people treat passions are something one is born to. The things I'm interested in now I learned of mostly due to accident. For example, I got into programming languages because I read Philip Greenspun's writing back in the day, which took me to SICP, and from there onto other programming language theory. I studies AI thinking I was interested in genetic algorithms and fuzzy logic, but an inspiring lecturer got me interested in statistical machine learning. These are just lucky accidents. There are many other areas that would be just as deep that I could have landed in. A few chance encounters at the right time and I might have ended up in graphics, or distributed systems, or some other field away from computing.

Second, business as a sole trader is hard. It gets much easier when you can share the load and specialise a bit.

Re: Quitting your job to pursue your passion is a privilege

#27

Post by beatpanda »

tl;dr "Being your own boss is hard work."

It's true that some people are going to have an easier time quitting a full time job to pursue a passion than others. The correct response is for those of us who have that privilege to do our best to recognize that not everyone can do that, and then enable those people for whom that's harder.

Discussions of privilege derail when they turn in to "...and so you should feel bad for being happy." No, you should recognize that if it's within your power to help other people be as happy as you are, you have a responsibility to do that.

Re: Quitting your job to pursue your passion is a privilege

#28

Post by xirdstl »

spinPhysician wrote: post #12

Ten years ago, the rhetorical buzzwords of that period had gotten really, really tedious. Words like: - Patriot - Freedom - Terrorism - Never Forget - If we don't do X, they win Ten years later, and I'm glad those words are a joke by now. But only to face new words: - Privilege - Trigger - Victim Blaming - Social Justice - Perpetuating false narratives Buzzwords only have currency with people who want others to stop…

I have to agree. When I encounter those, I usually tune out or click away.

Re: Quitting your job to pursue your passion is a privilege

#29

Post by alex82398 »

It is not bullshit. I quit my job, and it worked fairly well, 6 figures in remote job, I even got on stage with Google vice-president.

The problem is that you need to give it 100%. Otherwise you are just replacing one job with another. It is not good idea to 'travel the world' while building next startup. Best thing is to lock yourself in cheap basement, work 12 hours day, take regular walks, eat and sleep.

What killed my passion was toxic marriage. I filled time I would spend at work, with another task. And my passion was still on side track.

And author himself admits, he quit for other problems, following his passion was sidetrack.

Anyway just one warning: it takes lot of dedication and self-control. If you are struggling with procrastination etc, dont even think about it!

disclaimer: I am drunk

Re: Quitting your job to pursue your passion is a privilege

#30

Post by gxs »

paulcole wrote: post #11
[deleted] wrote: post #7

[deleted]

"You can live at home with your parents and try out ideas" You say this like it's a privilege that everyone has. Not everyone has this option.

Omfg give it a rest already.

Yes, some people are more privileged than others. But if you're going to hang out on an internet forum full of professional programmers only to lament how privileged everyone is youre going to have a bad time.

In the context of this forum and this discussion, nothing about what the parent said screams privilege.

Living with your parents after college is privilege now? Where the hell does this circus end?

If you look down the chain far enough, we are all privileged and none of us should be allowed a modicum of joy or happiness because we should all be steeped in guilt.

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