Post: #1

Okay, so I'm in a bit of a hole and require assistance. I'm 24 years old, just finished a teaching degree (which I discovered I didn't really want 3/4 way through but finished anyway), still living at home and see no clear direction in life. I don't particularly enjoy the city I'm living in at the moment and have been obsessed with the idea of travelling for a while now. I actually just came back from a month away in Thailand, but I feel continuing to travel at this stage will just be running away from bigger problems. I would prefer to travel because I am completely satisfied where I am in life and want new experiences, not because I'm disappointed or unhappy with my life and running away from it.

Some have suggested teaching overseas in Asia, but the problem is I can't stand teaching and don't think I could live in Asia full time (Not into Asian girls either for the record). I desperately want to find my passion as I truly believe that working a job you are passionate about is the difference between living a fulfilling life and being constantly depressed, and I've been trying so hard to discover that passion over the last few years, doing countless hours of research, but still can't find the answers. The one thing that interests me and I would be fulfilled doing is psychological/sociological based research but I'm also no idiot. That would involve more study, top grades, and there's next to no work out there. Money isn't a huge deal to me. I would prefer to make 60k doing a job I love than 100k doing a job I hate but even getting that at the moment seems like a mountain to climb.

I was considering moving to London and taking a teaching job there just for the sake of the experience/travel, but in hindsight that would not only be doing something I dislike, but just scraping through on the low income as well. Not to mention, it wouldn't solve any of these problems once I'm through with it.

I have no genius ideas for an online business so I feel my only other option, other than working dead-end jobs, is to go back and study...but study what? I'm hopless with Maths and computers so can't see myself getting through engineering, computer science and all those other technical fields people suggest around here. I thought about accounting as apparently complicated Mathematics isn't involved but the monotony of it would get to me and I can't see that triggering any kind of passion. My skills are mostly literacy (Reading, writing, researching) and management (Organising, problem solving etc) based. The only viable options I see at this point are psychology, business or law degrees. I can't make the same mistake twice and waste more years. Something needs to give.

Any helpful input on where to go next or how to make such a decision would be appreciated guys.

Post: #2

Your problem is that you are looking for something to be "passionate" about at the outset, as if having a "passion" is something that life owes you. But it almost never works that way.

Only a small minority of men have some inclination or talent for a particular activity that is so overwhelming that the question of what to do never really arises for them. They can be said to have a "passion" almost from birth. But in general, that is not something to be expected. The idea that every man has a magical "passion" that he will one day fortuitously discover -- like a gift from the skies -- is simply a misunderstanding, no different from the idea that every man has a mystical "one", the one -- and only -- girl that is destined to make him happy, and his fate depends on whether he ever runs into this mythical creature. Both ideas are equally appealing, and equally specious; and for the great majority of men, sitting around waiting to discover one's "passion" is apt to be just as unpromising a course in life as sitting around waiting for "the one" to knock on your door.

Instead, the way to achieve a happy and interesting life is to find something you can do which pays decent money, which you are reasonably good at, and which, if possible, you don't absolutely hate doing. Find such an occupation, and do it as well as possible. You don't need to love it, nor should you expect to; but over time, if you devote real attention to it and try to get good at what you do, you may well come to find it tolerable -- and after some years, if you are successful, much more than tolerable. You will grow into your job and it will grow into you to an extent that can be scarcely less deep or less satisfying than if you'd started out following an imagined passion, or even a real one.

In your particular case, if teaching is something you truly can't stand, then you shouldn't do it; few things are worse than a teacher who hates teaching. Instead, find a job where you can use your managerial and problem solving skills. There are thousands of such jobs; a friend of mine was a comparative literature major in college, but he eventually found a job working as a project manager for a health insurance company, after doing a couple other jobs in healthcare management startups. He has become good at what he does, enjoys his work for the most part -- of course not at all times and not every day, but that's not how life is -- and gets paid decently well. It's not anyone's dream job growing up but that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with doing it and doing it well.

In short, find a job where you can use your relative strengths; and try to do it well, gain some experience, and get ahead. Look for opportunities to advance, but also be patient and realize that it won't necessarily happen overnight and that you have to pay your dues. Don't worry about discovering a "passion", just find something that you don't absolutely hate (while remembering that almost all work has its less pleasant aspects). With any luck, you'll be able to earn a decent living, and over time develop an expertise in a field and the quiet affection and satisfaction that come with it -- and those will be feelings earned by gritty and persistent effort, rather than given to you at the outset merely because you asked for them.

Post: #3

^ LOZ I would enjoy a response from you greatly.

The only professions I know that pay decently and people seem to enjoy are being a private school teacher at a rich kid school, firefighter, physical therapist, college or community college professor or pilot.

The rest of the passion jobs usually don't pay the bills especially for a family.

Everyone else for the most part is so-so about their job. Even ones like docotors and nurses often have enough stress, bureaucracy, and bad patients to water it down.

If you were a nerd I would have suggested computer science tons of guys love to code for whatever reason.

In LOZ's terms I fare well I would say I am 80% to ideal.

My problems with being a coder is that:

- I have to sit at a computer
- In America only maybe 20% of girls think its cool usually the nerdier types (abroad it garners much more respect)
- I have ZERO interesting work stories to tell or remember (I think this one is the one that burns the most)

The last point is the brutal one. I can find my work interesting and challenging on a day to day basis. If I wrote an autobiography zero pages would be devoted to what I do 40+ hours a week which is very hard to ignore looking at the big picture.

Sometimes I think about getting out although on a logical scale like LOZ it suits me extremely well.

Post: #4

I think Mike Rowe put it best " don't follow your passion, let your passion follow you". If you really are in a position where money isn't an issue this is a real time to experiment. You may find you have an affinity for something you never considered. Take a small class at a community college for cheap many of them have great programs. I recently was in a somewhat similar position and took a welding class, a scuba diving class, and a language. None of them really took off but it's been a great past year.

Post: #5

Travesty, it sounds to me like you are doing extremely well. You should appreciate what you have, and not let the (imaginary) perfect be the enemy of the good, or in your case of the excellent.

Of the three negative aspects of your job that you mention, only the first one -- having to sit in front of a computer all day -- strikes me as a potentially serious one. Of course this is shared by the great majority of all contemporary white collar jobs, so it's not as if coding is unique in that regard. But if you develop certain good physical habits -- good seated posture, taking frequent stretching breaks, and proper exercise and sleep hygiene -- you can mitigate nearly all of the negative effects that this kind of work could have on your health and well-being. There are some more tips in this thread I posted a while ago:

/thread-46677.html

As for the glamour of your profession in the eyes of pussy, that is of course irrelevant in your case. You're already better at getting pussy than 95% of the male population (to be conservative) and you should have enough game to make being a street sweeper appear mysterious and glamorous, LOL. This is the least of your worries.

As far as the absence of war stories from your job, I think you are taking too narrow and conventional a view of what a narrative really is and what is worth talking about (and even writing about if, God forbid, you were ever so inclined). Almost any habitual activity accrues to it so many little features and modest charms that no one ever thinks about; the way you come to work (even if it is just a trip from your bedroom to your home office); how you dispose yourself to it, how you follow a problem and solve it, what you see around on your lunch break (or the smell of the nasty Chinese takeout if you never go out on that break); the slight daze as you start getting tired in the afternoon and its relief by a (perhaps ill-advised) unsugared energy drink. When and how you look away from the lines of code to browse the forum or idly check out some piece of Internet porn in violation of a recently declared nofap initiative.

All these things are what no one ever puts in their autobiography, but maybe that is why so many autobiographies are not very interesting. People feel they have to look to some extraordinary spectacle to generate charm and interest; when so much actual charm and interest is sitting right under their noses, in the very "soul-crushing" environs that we all like so much to whine about.

In any case, even if you don't see the everyday charms of a coder's life in the way I do (and it's not for the time being a majority view, LOL) -- I think you have it so good in doing a job that you basically like, are expert in, and which pays you well, that you'd be a fool to throw it aside simply because it does not lend itself to tales of conventional adventure. So that's my response.

Post: #6

It always amazes me how many people let passion stand in the way of meaning.

If I had a choice, I would prefer to find meaning in what I do over passion in what I do. The latter tends to ebb and flow, the former does not.

Post: #7

Thanks LOZ.

What makes coding a good thing I can work remotely if I gain a little more experience.

For the computer you can get a standing adjustable workstation.

For the no stories part the best fix would be to move into robotics programming especially in the next 2 decades. Programming a physical android type robot that does many tasks would have a million war stories. Simple digital applications do not.

Post: #8

For flexibility and money get a job in sales. If you hate it, get a job related to the skilled trades.

If you hate that go back to school for a two year health care tech program.

Post: #9

Coding is not too bad, its very creative, you can create almost anything you can think of. Currently i'm sitting in a dark pub in Northern Norway, drinking some beers and working on something that excites me. I couldn't be here without being passionate about coding. Plus I think girls dig guy's who is a coder, is lifting and is not a nerd with horsetail. All in all, not to bad to be passionate about coding

Post: #10

^ Listen you talk about my horsetail like that again and you'll have that beer all over your head and your laptop snapped in two.

Post: #11

How did you learn coding?

Post: #12

I used to believe in "finding" a passion. Somehow. Somewhere.

Now I believe in process of elimination.

In the past year I've done the club scene(worked with the owner). I've done copy writing. I've done independent home remodeling projects. Each instance was an endeavor into the unknown where I learned a lot and formulated new opinions about the world. A lot of this knowledge will most likely contribute towards a more fulfilling project down the road.

My point is that you have to put yourself out there and just try shit, especially in areas where the barrier to entry is so low(internet). You might not have any genius ideas for an online business but say you are skilled in literacy. You should be using that skill, especially if you have nothing else in the works.

You are not going to make one decision that we helped you to realize that is going to help you solve this problem.

You are going to have to make many decisions on your own if you want to find something that fulfills you.

Forget about finding your passion for now and focus on improving your mindset to be able to grow and learn from everything.

Travesty made an interesting comment about autobiographies.

I've read a lot of autobiographies and even some of the most remarkable people have entire 5-10 years chunks that are just glossed over.

I think that's kind of comforting. Those 5-10 year chunks spent toiled away doing unremarkable things can set the stage for some cool shit later on.

Post: #13

Lovely posts by The Lizard of Oz. I think people often loose sight of the fact that many of us, even great adventurers (and I'm fortunate enough to know a couple, so am not talking completely out of my arse I promise), are a product of all the little moments in our lives, far more than the occasional major events. Our weekend projects, our reading habits, who we come home to, the stories we tell our children before bed, the things we do pro bono in the communities we live in and the relationships we form there, our wives, girlfriends, friends and family - all these precious little bonds we form are the bulk of what go towards making up a full, happy and rich life.

I do think it is important to have meaningful work, because it is good for the soul to do work that has real value, but there are a thousand unglamorous ways to do so, none of which have any real material baring on our ability to be happy or be fulfilled.

Post: #14

(12-20-2015 12:56 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  Instead, the way to achieve a happy and interesting life is to find something you can do which pays decent money, which you are reasonably good at, and which, if possible, you don't absolutely hate doing. Find such an occupation, and do it as well as possible. You don't need to love it, nor should you expect to; but over time, if you devote real attention to it and try to get good at what you do, you may well come to find it tolerable -- and after some years, if you are successful, much more than tolerable. You will grow into your job and it will grow into you to an extent that can be scarcely less deep or less satisfying than if you'd started out following an imagined passion, or even a real one.

Luckily I didn't fall into the tolerable job routine which seems to be more of the norm. Or maybe it's the anti-depressants that help make it tolerable for many. hah

I agree life doesn't owe you anything, but that doesn't mean you don't owe it to yourself.

Spending most of your adult life working that tolerable job isn't a life worth living for me. Especially when you factor in the amount of time you spend working.

Finding something you enjoy can be hit or miss. I tried a ton of different stuff. My family would make fun of me because I would jump from job to job when I was younger.

You need to have the courage to take chances.

I enjoy solving problems and building stuff. I can find many different types of jobs that would employ those ideals that I would enjoy doing. I ended up working for myself developing products that I sell. Everything from developing the products to the sales cycles interests me. I don't need to sit and wait for the weekend to find some measure of happiness.

LOZ is right, sitting on your arse won't find a passion or even a tolerable job. Going to Asia to teach may be the start to a journey that will land in into something you enjoy. Then again, it may not. The only thing I do know is you won't find it sitting on your sofa.

Post: #15

You're already somewhat invested in teaching, so you may as well get some use out of it.
Consider starting a private tutoring company in Asia.
Create lesson plans, etc., and farm the dirty work out to local tutors, who benefit from being part of a prestigious Western brand.

Post: #16

I don't really understand this "finding" a passion. Aren't you interested in something, anything? Every guy I know who does what he loves for a living had to slog their way through a bunch of crappy jobs for a while before getting himself in a position to be able to do what he always wanted to do for profit. Whether it be working on high performance cars, playing music or making art, just doing their own thing, these guys have been passionate about their niche since childhood, it was only ever a matter of time and determination. (personally, I do something I enjoy and am good at for money, I do what I love as a hobby/sideline)

The question is, what would you do if you had a million dollars?

Post: #17

Thanks for all the replies here. I'm definitely aware that not everyone finds a work passion in life where they get up every morning enthusiastic and raring to go. I guess finding something I'm good at that I can tolerate doing on a daily basis is what I meant by "passion". Clearly, I'll never be a professional footballer (my true passion since a young age ) or anything along those lines so maybe "calling" would have been a better choice of words.

Getting out and trying different things is all well and good, but two issues:

1) I have no clue where to start. Nothing stands out above anything else, even after years of research into all the different occupations/work out there. All I know is my intelligence isn't numerical or scientific based, which eliminates a lot of the best options eg. Engineering, Medicine, Accounting, Computer Science. I have the most common set of skills, which suit humanities/social sciences/the useless business majors, and that makes finding a career that's tolerable, realistic, decent-paying and has good job prospects a difficult task. Like I said, I see Business (Management, marketing), psychology and law as my only options for solid "careers that match my skills, but I can't afford to make the wrong move again.

2) I don't have the luxury of time to waste experimenting, being mid 20's and already losing so many years persuing a career I didn't end up wanting. If I need to go back to university, I need to get started NOW. I'm not sure what I could possibly do without further education to be honest. Education is a very pigeonholed degree so isn't very adaptable to other areas. Starting an online business isn't on the radar right now. I want a purposeful career, not just a source of income.

Post: #18

Yeah jobs tend not to be optimised to meet the passions of the employee. Funny that.

But the more you can overlap your passions,strengths and motivations with your income generation (be that job, freelancing, business, investing, whatever) the happier you'll be and the better you'll do at it.

I would advice reading some books to find that out:

-Strengthsfinder 2.0
-What Motivates Me?

Btw you say you want purposeful career, not online business. What is "purposeful" to you? What would give you that sense of purpose?

Maybe it's helping people, maybe it's building something great, maybe it's mastering a craft, maybe it's making a particular impact on the world.

A job can be a vehicle for that, but so can a business, online or offline. Both are ways of delivering value to others, whether it's job/business is just about how you structure how the value-delivery gets done.

Anyway, IMO you should quickly get to "know yourself" better i.e. what your core passions/strengths/motivations really are. Read those books as a start. Even get some professional career advice. Once you're clearer on that you can move forward.

Post: #19

People who love what they do and get paid for it are rare. In general, you are being paid because it's something you would not do for free. All jobs have unpleasant aspects, or get unpleasant after you'vedone the same thing again and again. I suggest you work as a teacher and at the same timeexplore other possibilities. These may involve staying in teaching but teaching subjects you enjoy teaching,working for a private school (more motivated students, fewer discipline problems) teaching English in Japan, Korea, etc..
Or something related to teaching: school administrator, selling to schools.
Or something unrelated to teaching.
Bottom line: sitting around the house watching TV isn't going to help you find a job/career either. Work on finding your goal while working for what you're qualified.

Post: #20

I was chatting with a woman a few weeks ago who works as a project manager in IT/software for a large financial services company. I'm sure she is quite well paid. She told me she doesn't have a background in programming or anything technical at all. Looks like she spends a lot of time making PowerPoint presentations.

I agree with Lizard's fantastic post. Not much to add to that. Often it's the how you are doing something rather than what you are doing that matters more. For the time being, see if you can focus on the details of what you are doing instead of getting sucked into a mental stream of thinking about how much you hate it. That's actially a form of resistance to the reality of your current situation. I would guess there must be something enjoyable which drew you towards it originally. Try and pay attention to that. Don't make your job title into your identity. That doesn't preclude looking for something else and taking action towards it.

Post: #21

I think it is important to stress as an addendum to The Lizard's point that you must search for meaning and adventure in everything you do, with the job itself simply being a vehicle for the partial attainment of this. I'm reminded of the lines at the start of 'The Death of Ilya Ilych', where Tolstoy writes that Ilya Ilych's life had been 'most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible'. Real significance and the ability to manifest it is already within you. Your job is simply one scratching post for you to sharpen your metaphysical claws upon.

Post: #22

(12-20-2015 01:52 PM)SunW Wrote:  It always amazes me how many people let passion stand in the way of meaning.

If I had a choice, I would prefer to find meaning in what I do over passion in what I do. The latter tends to ebb and flow, the former does not.

Great post.

Meaning brings passion. Passion does not bring meaning.

Banging hot tail does not bring meaning. Its just fun and I may be passionate (especially while banging). But it is not meaningful in itself.

Post: #23

I had this conversation with my brother the other day.

If you have a passion, you'll already be doing it.

People who love music cannot help but sing, write songs in their spare time. People who love astronomy are always looking up telescope, reading blogs about astronomy.

Although I claim to be interested in space travel, inventing medical devices. In reality I spend my free time drinking wine and watching porn or maybe looking naked pictures of super models. Thus I have concluded that my ideal, passionate job is be a photographer of nude supermodels or create a website like Pornhub.com or Mr. Skin.

Post: #24

Passion is for women, child-like adults and gay men.

Once I was feeling like I didn't particularly like what I do for a living and spoke to my Father about it.

He said "When you start making lots of money, and you will...money will become your passion".

He was right. The pursuit of money and power should be the focus of all men. Nothing else matters.

Post: #25

(12-23-2015 06:22 AM)H1N1 Wrote:  I think it is important to stress as an addendum to The Lizard's point that you must search for meaning and adventure in everything you do, with the job itself simply being a vehicle for the partial attainment of this. I'm reminded of the lines at the start of 'The Death of Ilya Ilych', where Tolstoy writes that Ilya Ilych's life had been 'most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible'. Real significance and the ability to manifest it is already within you. Your job is simply one scratching post for you to sharpen your metaphysical claws upon.

Relevant quote from Jason Everman who was kicked out of Nirvana and Soundgarden and went on to serve with the Army Rangers and Special Forces.

“The way I look at it, life is meaningless,” Everman said the last time I saw him. “The meaningfulness is what you impart to it.”