A bit on Re-thinking Careers and stuff

It's odd how many people say "when are you going to get a job" to me these days.

I've had a lot of conversations recently that have gone very much like this 

Them - "So when are you going to get another job"

Me -"I don't really want a job, I like doing what I want, when I want , and I'm building something"

Them - "So you're not looking for a job, so what are you going to do, how are you going to make money" 

Me -"Errrm, are you asking me about how I spend me time and what my passions are and what I want to create, or are you asking me about how I best extract value from my body" 

Them - "I guess I mean, how are you making money?, like you don't have a job, are you freelancing, or I mean......errrr, are you OK? " 

It dawns on me…….

We have a very strange relationship with "jobs" these days still. It feels very much like the industrial age where companies would look after people, but you'd be beholden to them. 

In the US, your healthcare is expected to come from your employer, how insane is that? They "own" our health. To get a Visa to go to China you need a letter from your company saying that you have permission from them to go to China! . It’s deeply strange that we are expected to see employers as parent like figures.

We make a lot of assumptions.

There is an assumption that we should retire and that day is a great day.

Generally speaking humans since we evolved from apes have made money from the physicality of their body. We moved things. Over time those things have become lighter, the distances smaller, and precision more important. From miners, farmers, to loom workers, to calculator operators. Yet since about 1960, the best jobs are about using technology as a lever to our minds.

Retirement exists because our bodies wear out. Yet our minds generally become more useful. We know more people, we have a better reputation, we become more wise, we have more experience. For most people in work today, they will typically become the very best at what they do about the age of 70. It seems like an odd time to just stop then. Why can’t we spread our retirement time over the years before, when we can see kids, explore the world, enjoy our better bodies? Why on earth would we want to stop adding value to the world ? 

There is an assumption that we should probably earn more and more money every year 

This probably comes from the idea we have to retire and we have to save for it.

Why can’t people take years or severals years off, why can’t people just do and earn less for a bit, why can’t people maintain the same “lifestyle” by just spending less? 

There is an assumption that work is bad 

From the above I probably seem quite lazy. As it happens I’m working very hard these days, it’s just I really like what my “work is”, somehow to about 25% of people, working hard is something to boast about, to about 50% of people, working hard seems like exploitation. Maybe we should think of work more like passions, if you’re lucky enough to like what you “do”

There is an assumption that we should probably work 40+ hours a week if we can. 

Where does this come from? Being unhappy is about the most expensive thing around, having less time and energy comes second. Working the hours you want to, to earn what you like to, seems deeply counter to modern culture, when it seems rather obvious.

There is an assumption that income comes from a job

Without wanting to sound like some ghastly “get rich” book, our preoccupation with “jobs” as income is odd.

We assume jobs are full time, we assume we do one at a time, we assume thats what we earn.

Clearly most people don’t have capital to earn significant money from Stock dividends, or want to trade shares, or can rent our property they own. But from leasing a car to rent on Turo to writing on Substack, to doing bits of stuff here and there on Upwork, to selling things on Shopify, there are more accessible and more imaginative ways to make moderate sums of money, to augment life, than ever before. 

--

This isn’t advice, these are just me asking questions. 

I’m spending time building something that’s likely to involve me having a far more conventional career than this suggests. 

In this time it’s been clear that having freedom is perhaps the greatest gift and privilege there is. Being able to work on your terms, being able to decimate fixed costs to reduce anxiety from money, being able to be anywhere, being able to meet people whenever I want, for as long as needed.

The reality of the future is that the value we add is not especially threatened by robots or AI, but it’s absolutely clear that the main value will come from the most human attributes. Creativity, empathy, relationships, persuasion, and most of all imagination are the most important attributes to foster. The currency of work in the future will not be effort ( like pulling a plough) or time ( like working in a factory), but the value we create from ideas/outcomes/relationships.

This value is entirely unbundled from Time. They come from quality of thought, from inspiration, from knowledge. 

It becomes useful to think of our bodies like slightly overweight, rather bad Decathletes. We ostensibly get paid to throw a javelin, run short distances fast, run long distances a bit less far, jump over things. If we do them better than others, we get paid more. We don’t get paid per hour/day. And perhaps we don’t get paid a monthly amount, and perhaps we don’t often throw javelins. 

We probably spend most of the time thinking about our diet, and working out, and working out more, and eating well and sleeping, and talking to coaches, and meeting other athletes and learning more and more and perhaps even earn money from sponsors for being known. 

Most people in the working world are effectively decathletes who spend every day in competition. There is little time to plan ahead, to learn new jumping technique, to get sponsored. It’s a tough place to get from.

I do think perhaps the more we can think of ourselves as investing in our health, relationships, techniques, while we slowly extract ourselves from a very heavy competition schedule, the better. Yet it’s a very ballsy thing to do. We’re not set up well for this, as my conversation at the start of this thread shows. I’m glad I’m not that bothered what people think of me.

NOTE

I’m aware of the privilege that flows through this entire piece. For some this will seem deeply obnoxious. Many people do earn money from their bodies, many can’t possibly take time out. Many people HATE their jobs and feel trapped, many people can’t think of income beyond their jobs, they have no time, they are exhausted. Many people have very high fixed costs and it stresses them to death. Most people lack self belief because the world somehow seems designed to do that. 

Perhaps not as many as we think and perhaps as the world evolves it becomes even easier to live more cheaply, to earn money in more accessible ways etc. If nothing else these are good assumptions to test. So I'm sorry if this piece appears to ignore those realities and stinks of smug.

I’m getting dangerously close to being a cliched young naive writer who blogs recycled “life advice” and I’m sorry if I crossed that line. But hope some find it interesting.