The most beautiful problem you will ever struggle with
View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Whether you’re knee deep into your career or you’re still in school, you’re going to struggle with this question many times: “what do I want to do with my life?”
When we’re young, this gets framed as “what do I want to do when I grow up?”
And then at some point, most stop asking it that way.
Why?
Because we think we’re expected to solve that problem by the time we’re settled into adulthood. Or worse, that the mere passage of time somehow just solves it for us.
Let me share a secret with you, |NAME|.
I’m 47 years old. I’ve had two careers, raised a family, gone to school, built and grown a successful business.
And I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
It took me a long time to be okay with that.
And it’s made me better at what I do. Let me explain.
I know what interests me: I like to help solve interesting business problems. The way I do that mostly involves writing as an outcome. But not always.
I know what I give a damn about: paring down complicated things so that they work better. And I know what I’m really good at: connecting things in unusual ways.
None of that defines where I will be in ten or twenty years from now in terms of work. At best, it shapes the choices that I want to exercise.
Notice how I framed that? I’m in charge of my choices. And the way I am in charge is by defining what I care about.
That’s a different mindset from even just two decades ago.
The choices you made at the ripe old age of 15 in high school were thought to have a significant bearing on where you’d go and what you’d do in life.
It was an institutionally reinforced self-delusion.
Back then, if you stuck with the same occupation for much of your career, odds were good that you’d be charting a path that was largely based on what somebody else was deciding for you (usually your employer). You’d get what you want if you did what you were told.
Things are different now.
Obedience no longer carries with it the rewards it once did.
Today, there are two kinds of jobs: those that can be performed by any number of people interchangeably, and those whose value is defined largely by what you put into it.
That latter group is what I call the business of being creative. And as a regular reader of this newsletter you’ve likely heard me say this before: in this kind of work, you’re not paid for your passion or love of something. You’re paid for your mastery of it. Mastery is how you take those feelings and turn them into knowledge and action.
But here’s where things get weird. Does that mean that the longer you do something, the more sure you are about where you’re going?
No.
In my experience, the opposite is true.
Here’s a quick story to illustrate:
A frustrated student of zen buddhism writes to her teacher: Master, she says, I’m following all the instructions and still I am struggling. What am I doing wrong? The teacher replies: “You must keep don’t-know mind (http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0802130526/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=15121&creative=390961&creativeASIN=0802130526&linkCode=as2&tag=thinkitcreati-20 ) , always and everywhere.”
Similarly, Alan Watts (http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B005YNPBH0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=15121&creative=390961&creativeASIN=B005YNPBH0&linkCode=as2&tag=thinkitcreati-20) warns of the “divided mind” being at the root of this great struggle. He continues: “So long as the mind is split, life is perpetual conflict, tension, frustration, and disillusion. Suffering is piled on suffering, fear on fear, and boredom on boredom.”
Be open to doubt. Question everything.
Empty yourself of the idea that ownership of the future is not only possible but that it is more important than the choices in front of you right now to exercise.
Get used to saying I don’t know. And saying it often.
In doing so, you slowly put yourself on the path to mastery as a maker of the unexpected.
Very best, Patrick
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