What To Do With Your Life

This weekend while I was in Seattle I spent a lot of time at the airport and on public transportation ... so while I was waiting I spent some quality time with Barbara's book. Let me share some of the thoughts, topics and exercises I found particularly helpful:

1) My problem has always been that I like too many things: whales, kids, traveling, helping people, painting, math, usability, etc. I can't seem to make a decision career-wise. What should I study in school? What do I want to do with the rest of my life? - as soon as I start focusing on one field (teaching, human computer interaction, architecture) I feel trapped and switch interest to another field (marine biology, international education, social work). My problem is I lack COMMITMENT!

Of course - I'm afraid of closing doors and never giving myself the opportunity to figure out what I truely love and feel passionate about. So as soon as I settle on something I switch to something else out of fear. But what I need to realize is that diving into a field and mastering it is important. It'll give my work more meaning. And if anything, getting really good at something will open up more doors. I still want to use the next year to explore and learn more about the fields I'm interested in but once I choose a field to study I just need to go for it.

Figuring out what to choose is still going to be tough. Yesterday I was reading a funny article about Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert (the Daily Show guys) in Rollingstone Magazine (I really like adding all of these links!) .. here's a quote from Stephen Colbert about how he figured out being an actor was his path: 'I started as a straight actor. I'd go onstage and I'd think, "Wow, this is the only thing I want to work really hard at. I will rehearse fifty times on a single scene, I don't care. I'll do it again." I took that as evidence ..." I think he's right, finding something you're willing and wanting to spend long hours on might be a good indicator of where your passion is.

2) Here's an exercise for us - if you had 10 lives what would you do with each one? I think we should each do this one and then I'll ask the next questions from the book to help us figure out a plan for our futures.

3) How would you feel if the job you have now you had to do forever? When I did this exercise I realized what I don't like about my job now is there's never an end. I work really hard to bring in more revenue for the company and if I do that's never good enough - the company always wants more. I don't like that I never have a finished product and I don't like feeling that I can never really succeed. It's always import to improve your work but in online advertising where limitless amounts of money is involved, greed gets in the way and people always want more.

4) Finding meaning in work - you need to find something that matters to you. If you don't care about what you're doing you're not going to put all of your energy into it ... I like to give a project I'm working on my complete attention but I've found it impossible to do so when I don't really care about the goal or the process itself.

5) Remember that results are not immediate.

Okay, more later!