Life in transition (146)

I’m back again. This will not be the last newsletter I ever write. Appreciate your patience.

Transitions

We often think of life changes as hard lines, and some things really are abrupt. The status quo can change in a day, with no warning signs. One things stops, then another begins. But I find this is rarely the case. Change is a transition. More often than not you won’t even see it coming. Life is transient. Layered. Slowly things fade in and out. Life evolves. Day to day it all feels the same, then when you look back on it, you realize the adventure it really was.

Careers

I hate the idea of a traditional career. It scares me.

Don’t get me wrong, I respect doing the same thing for 40 years. And it will almost surely get you paid handsomely by the end. (At least I hope so since you should be in the 1% of people doing that thing). But I think the people who have outsized returns over traditional careers simply made the right choice at the start. Examples: doctors, lawyers, engineers over the past 100-200 years, or being a software engineer over the last 40 years as software came to dominate our society. What’s next? Knowing where the major economic growth will be over the next 40 years would make me comfortable picking one career. But what scares me is that if you choose wrong, you will be stuck with a ceiling on your earning potential.

I prefer to think of a career as a long string of new projects. One begins, one ends, one continues…. Just like I was saying with transitions, your career will stack, things will overlap and evolve. Stack new skills and be creative. I aim to be 1 of 1.

Dream job

My dream job is not doing something I hate for a million dollars a year. I may be wealthy by the end of the year, but it’s not sustainable, and more importantly, not enjoyable. How is that the dream? My dream is working in a library so I can read all day and talk to people who love books. Or being a personal trainer so I can stay fit and workout all day. My dream job has nothing to do with money, purely enjoyment.

Making money is often not fun. That’s ok. In fact, that’s kind of the whole point. If it was fun everyone would do it and the reward for it would be minimal. When I am trying to make money, I am not trying to have fun. When I am having fun, I am not trying to make money. If they mix, thats great, but I also don’t want to turn my hobby into a job that drains me instead of recharging me.

Quick thoughts

• What is the history of Canadian Thanksgiving and why is it different to the US one? I have no idea. Edit, I actually found out before publishing. They both celebrate the harvest, but the Canadian one is earlier due to the colder weather. And also Lincoln wanted a late fall holiday so he chose that date….

• The writers block is more due to laziness and content consumption. If I just stopped watching videos and got off of all social media, it would be easy to create. Instead, I have been spending my sunday nights watching youtube videos, clicking through reels, without realising how I even opened up the app. Instead, I want to spend them reading classic books and writing dank newsletters.

Quote to go

Thanks for reading!

Lucas