You could read what I have to say, or you can just skip to this essay by Paul Graham right now:
Still here? Well, here are my thoughts on the matter. I teach at a secondary school, and one of my goals for this upcoming semester (which starts on Monday) is I want all of the students to read this essay. Then I want them to have their parents read it.
To do something well you have to like it. That idea is not exactly novel. We’ve got it down to four words: “Do what you love.” But it’s not enough just to tell people that. Doing what you love is complicated.
True enough. Joseph Campbell phrased it differently, but I think the sentiment is the same, when he spoke with Bill Moyers for the TV show/book “The Power of Myth”:
My general formula for my students is “Follow your bliss.” Find where it is, and don’t be afraid to follow it.
One of the tragedies of the way so many schools operate is that we never give young people a chance to really follow their bliss, and we set them up to think that following their bliss is merely having fun. Graham says, “Do what you love doesn’t mean, do what you would like to do most this second.” Doing what you love is not a plea for impulsivity. I wonder, though, what other sorts of activities we expect to get when time is metered out in 50 or 60 minute increments. Activities that I truly love - playing with my daughter, talking with my wife, reading, or walking and thinking - can’t be bounded into a time frame. Sometimes 15 minutes with my daughter is enough (especially when she’s wanting to play Barbies ;^) ), but sometimes we can spend a whole day together and as she’s going to bed we are still talking about what a great day it is. The time I need to follow my bliss is fluid, and can’t be blocked off in a daytimer for a certain regular time. Neither does following your bliss mean doing things in order to receive great prestige or monetary reward. Again, we send very mixed messages to our students, especially when our education system is skewed towards preparing students for post-secondary education, especially the emphasis and prestige given to getting a University education. Paul Graham refers to prestige and money as being Sirens that can lure us off our true course if we pay them too much heed:
You shouldn’t worry about prestige. Prestige is the opinion of the rest of the world. When you can ask the opinions of people whose judgement you respect, what does it add to consider the opinions of people you don’t even know? … The other big force leading people astray is money. Money by itself is not that dangerous. When something pays well but is regarded with contempt, like telemarketing, or prostitution, or personal injury litigation, ambitious people aren’t tempted by it. That kind of work ends up being done by people who are “just trying to make a living.” (Tip: avoid any field whose practitioners say this.) The danger is when money is combined with prestige, as in, say, corporate law, or medicine. A comparatively safe and prosperous career with some automatic baseline prestige is dangerously tempting to someone young, who hasn’t thought much about what they really like.
The trick, says Graham, is discipline when finding what it is that you love to do:
Although doing great work takes less discipline than people think– because the way to do great work is to find something you like so much that you don’t have to force yourself to do it– finding work you love does usually require discipline.
To do this, you need to have the discipline to navigate around the hazards posed by prestige, money and other traps in the way to finding what it is that you truly love to do. This is tough to do when you are in high school and have had very little exposure to real life (and, if you are in high school and reading this, you’ll just have to trust me that this is probably true. There are, of course, always exceptions). I think one of the best ways to avoid getting to deep into these traps is to find something you love to do that requires a certain amount of discipline and dedicate some time and effort into doing these as well as you can. Sports and artistic pursuits are good for this, as is education as long as you work on honing your mind instead of “How will my career opportunities be enhanced by this.” This kind of activity may end up leading you to your bliss, but it is rarely a linear process. The outcome of what you do with your life is rarely predictable based on where you start! Some people might find that a frightening prospect, but I find it rather optimistic and encouraging!
And now, speaking of discipline, I should stop writing (which is often my bliss) and get back to marking and preparing exams (which often requires much discipline for me, but is a good exercise in self-improvement).
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