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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

#81

Post by jariel »

quotemstr wrote: post #13

This anti-work ethic you see crop up once in a while is delusion. Success comes from perseverance, not idleness or detachment. A few days ago, there was an article from some CEO claiming that you don't need to work hard to succeed. Today, we have an article from HBR cautioning about becoming too invested in one's work. This sentiment is dangerous. It's harmful to teach young people to be cynical, indifferent, and laz…

This is not so much about 'hard work' or 'idleness' it's about 'identity', which errs towards a certain kind of professional identity when one is working all the time.

It's a very real phenom.

Also - consider that most 'extremely hardworking' bankers and lawyers are not creating jack (!) rather, they're competing with one another for customers and status. If they all chilled down none of us would notice in terms of lower value creation.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#82

Post by echelon »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #70
echelon wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What investments or instruments do you plan to put the $1M in to yield $40k/yr? Stocks, bonds, dividends, properties...?

U.S. large cap (S&P 500), international stocks, some individual public companies (RSUs/ESPP), some bonds. I don't own any real estate.

Do you intend to sell your large cap holdings as they accrue in value every year? How do you rebalance your portfolio to account for under performers and handle cap gains?

Sorry for asking so many questions! This is super informative. Thanks! :)

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#83

Post by quotemstr »

zackmorris wrote: post #65
quotemstr wrote: post #13

This anti-work ethic you see crop up once in a while is delusion. Success comes from perseverance, not idleness or detachment. A few days ago, there was an article from some CEO claiming that you don't need to work hard to succeed. Today, we have an article from HBR cautioning about becoming too invested in one's work. This sentiment is dangerous. It's harmful to teach young people to be cynical, indifferent, and laz…

I almost downvoted your comment but decided not to, since I don't think it's good to do that just because I disagree with someone. But I see your argument being repeated a lot, especially by successful people and the owner class, basically the people we think of as the top 10% and the 1%. There are a couple of fallacies with your argument: The first is that you view the unsuccessful as not hard-working enough. This g…

I see your argument a lot more often that mine. Both are very old. This idea that success is random and therefore inequality is unfair also goes back to the dawn of civilization. Nevertheless, in history, it's far more often the brilliant individual than the expansive committee that's driven us forward. Do you really think that each person really is endowed with equal faculties for dealing with money and technology? Is merit an illusion? I just can't accept that.

Most non-inherited wealth --- not all, granted --- is deserved. (Inheritance of massive wealth is a problem because it grants unearned power to unproven people.) I think if we'd strictly applied the principles you invoke, our species would have never left the trees.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#84

Post by momokoko »

beyondkaoru wrote: post #47
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...

What sorts of industries or positions are you currently working in or seeking?

There is a comment that replied to mine that is now dead but is fairy accurate for me as I do not have a college degree. I’ve been able to some what transition to a technician/mechanic path but I make barely enough to support myself without kids or any other expenses. I have found myself in many ways much happier with my work, but the instability and low wages definitely add stress at times. Unfortunately, I have found few opportunities where my many years of software development experience mean much to potential employers outside of the industry. Of course this is very anecdotal.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#85

Post by pertymcpert »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #76
PopeDotNinja wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will that cover health insurance & expenses? That stuff gets pricey fast.

I went to my state's health insurance site. It took me about 3 minutes to pull a quote. If my income was $40k/year, I could get a gold plan ($0 deductible) for $4,300/year in premiums (about $350/mo). Bronze plans had $3,200/year premiums but a $6,300 annual deductible. To keep costs predictable, I'd choose the gold plan. If I chose to live fully off investments in early retirement, my taxable income would be lower s…

I see this all the time, trying to live off dividends or low returns off something like $1m or so. The thing is if you retire early in 30 years time you’ve spent all of your returns and now inflation has eroded your principal.

I don’t see why you wouldn’t just keep working in a low stress easy job, part time or something, and continue to build savings.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#86

Post by Cthulhu_ »

cryptica wrote: post #57
nugget wrote: post #7

In 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…

For me work is what I enjoy the most about life. I would do it for free - In fact I worked on open source projects for free for almost a decade. Including some successful/popular ones. That said I still feel burned out. I've come to realize that not only did the work I do for free not give me any financial advantage (which I expected), but the people who've hired me over the past few years don't seem to recognize tha…

But it's still work - you call it work, for one. I mean you enjoy doing it, doing it for free, anonymously, without recognition - although the recognition part is starting to sting now - so why not? But there's other things to life than work as well. Find things you enjoy doing that aren't 'work'. Broaden your horizons. Even if it feels like a waste of time.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#87

Post by mmsimanga »

hackworks wrote: post #24

Analogous to “putting all eggs in a single basket”, the risks are very high. You end up becoming hyper sensitive at work, start taking everything personal -well, it is your identity or ego at stake. Leads be becoming very closed, guarded and aggressive. Everyday becomes a fight for survival. I personally went through this phase for a long time. Looking back, some of my managers exploited this by reinforcing. They kne…

I wonder if it is an age thing. Paraphrasing but there is a quote along the lines of the difference between experienced people/managers and inexperienced people is they know which battles to fight. Sadly this is a right of passage, you need to fight the wrong battles first before you realise this. I am in my forties now and so much better at selecting which battles to fight.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#88

Post by coldtea »

cloverich wrote: post #35
coldtea wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is most careers don't really qualify as "higher callings". Originally "higher calling" meant a much more important (e.g. scientific, humanitarian, patriotic, artistic, priesthood, etc.) not some person working up a management career in some BS enterprise selling BS through marketing... So while a doctor might have his "higher calling" as career, I doubt that can be the case for the millions of corporate d…

You might be surprised to find that many doctors fall into the very description in this article. Higher calling is a social construct and the reality is being a physician is a _lot_ of hours, a lot of BS, and a lot of patients who need self help more than your help. Its in most ways just like any other job, if you don't find some satisfaction in the actual work, you are going to be miserable. Many are.

>the reality is being a physician is a _lot_ of hours, a lot of BS, and a lot of patients who need self help more than your help

Sure. In the end though, you help people and occasionally save lives, you don't market and sell sugared soda water, nor are you a middleman in the paper market, or someone that devises new schemes to part people from their money via convincing ads, or tap away at some Dilbert style cube job.

So it's more appropriate to be a higher calling (and has historically been seen as such by many doctors) than some cube job.

Higher calling jobs still have drudgery and boring parts (plus useless bureaucracy to fight).

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#89

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

pertymcpert wrote: post #85
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to my state's health insurance site. It took me about 3 minutes to pull a quote. If my income was $40k/year, I could get a gold plan ($0 deductible) for $4,300/year in premiums (about $350/mo). Bronze plans had $3,200/year premiums but a $6,300 annual deductible. To keep costs predictable, I'd choose the gold plan. If I chose to live fully off investments in early retirement, my taxable income would be lower s…

I see this all the time, trying to live off dividends or low returns off something like $1m or so. The thing is if you retire early in 30 years time you’ve spent all of your returns and now inflation has eroded your principal. I don’t see why you wouldn’t just keep working in a low stress easy job, part time or something, and continue to build savings.

The withdrawal rate isn't a fixed $40k. It's $40k, adjusted for inflation, annually. Year 1 is $40k, Year 2 is $41.2k (assuming 3% inflation). Purchasing power stays constant over time.

Though I didn't specify the portfolio composition, most of my holding are US Large Cap, which are the 2nd best performing asset class below small cap: https://www.compoundvalue.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IR_..., but both classes are significantly above the others (Bonds & T bills), so I'm not sure what's meant by low returns. If you mean sequence of returns risk, most people use a bond tent to mitigate the risk.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#90

Post by itronitron »

cryptica wrote: post #80
incompleteness wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You expect them to spontaneously have a spiritual epiphany about your "old soul"? Please man, stand up for yourself and learn the measures of business ethics.

You're jumping to conclusions. I often asked for raises and tried to negotiate. I quit companies several times after they failed to promote me or they failed to give me a raise. I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with business skills. Just bad luck. My last boss was so upset when I told him I was thinking of quitting that, in front of the whole company, he threatened to throw me out of the window but then he apolog…

Larger and older companies tend to have much more structured and consistently positive annual salary adjustments. You should try to find one of those before you turn 35.
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