This won’t be comfortable
What’s up CareerPhilosophers?! It is I, your favorite CareerPhilosopher. After a long and drawn out holiday season, a week spent in the Dominican Republic speaking spanish to bartenders who had heard it all before, and a weekend trip to Southwestern Pennsylvania where I amazed locals with my knowledge of the anatomy of the clay pigeons I obliterated with my 12 gauge shotgun, I have returned, to you, my eager pupil. Listen closely, and I will enlighten you. ..
During these travels several observations were noted.
- For many people, spending time in fulfilling ways while also becoming wealthy is impossible or extremely unlikely if you do not have the basics covered ( see Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs)
- For those who do have the opportunity to find both fulfillment and wealth in whatever they do all day, it is often hard to figure out what exactly that might involve. (I’m talking to YOU now).
Every person fortunate enough to enjoy all the comforts of life, who therefore has the ability to choose what to do with his or her time, (how to make money, what hobbies to pursue, etc) will feel as if they have reached a void that they must fill. It is no longer obvious what to do, because it is no longer obvious what you care about.
Everyone must care about preservation of bodily integrity, or they will die. But after that, its all up to you.
You can fill this void with lots of things. Some of the most common include drugs, alcohol, and money, but also friends, family, art, travel, reading, writing, business, charity, exercise, and much more. Passions. Escapes. Love. It all adds color to a life that would otherwise be quite bland.
In this way, people search for is what Aristotle calls eudaimonia, or human flourishing. This concept appears similar to Maslow’s “Self Actualization” although the language surrounding eudaimonia seems to me to focus less on accomplishment and more on being fulfilled. In any case, Aristotle thought that what people search for and should search for is whatever makes them flourish. “Flourish” was defined as the becoming of the best version of oneself.
Now you might think this is some hocus pocus, but he was on to something big. We spend all this time trying to figure out what we “ought to do” (common answers include save the children who don’t have food, follow our parents’ life path, get a steady and boring job) and not nearly enough time figuring out what WE want to do. What will make us flourish.
Take me, for example. I always loved science as a kid, so for awhile I wondered if I should try to be a doctor, or physical therapist, or even a researcher of some kind. However, I never pursued those paths because when it came right down to it, I lack the patience and empathy required to care for people all day. I know myself and I would become frustrated and depressed. I would not flourish.
YOU need to stop considering what you think you should like and want, and what other people want you to like and want, and ACTUALLY CONSIDER WHAT YOU WANT. WHAT MAKES YOU FLOURISH. FUCK EVERYONE ELSE’S DESIRES.
The only way you will flourish is by being real with yourself. Your other option is to be driven by questionably determined notions of morality largely determined by the influence of Christianity long ago, or by the desires of your friends and family, or by the values of society as a whole. NONE of that sounds like the right answer.
What do you love? What would you do if you could do anything? See, those are the sort of questions that make you UNCOMFORTABLE, because they HIT HOME. Once you begin asking yourself stuff like that, it becomes clear that YOU HAVE NO IDEA.
That’s the first step.
Now, since you don’t know, go take steps to figure it out. Avoid complacency at all costs, she has already wrapped her wicked fingers around too many of us.