Well, obviously step 1 is look for a cure. But I think the answer is absolutely “live life as normal, but with a personal time horizon of 6 months.” If I have 70 years to live, that’s plenty of time to slowly learn a field of work and do some interesting stuff. If I have 6 months, I can work on maybe one idea. My time is probably much better spent on evangelism and just having a good time—if the expected value of my work goes down and the value of time spent having fun is fixed, I should have more fun.
Aha. It sounds like working for love, not a paycheck. I would instantly quit my job as it the opposite case. That would be actually one of the upsides of it. Sometimes the dream of never seeing the inside of an office again feels like it would worth a high price… although not as high as that. But 5 out of 7 days wasted on office fuckery to make someone else rich and achieve pretty much nothing is else actually another kind of a short lifespan—maybe long in the gross, but short in the net, living only 2⁄7 of it.
If I could start over, it is possible I would choose a “fun” major instead of a “safe” one AND not start a family before I have a “fun” (or “meaningful”, “world-changing”) job.
Or maybe not. I have the impression that enjoyable jobs are for neurotypicals because they involve things like networking to get a job. With “safe majors” one can just apply to job advertisements on monster.com this is why I chose it, so that I never have to eat lunch with people I don’t personally want to (which, to be fair, is almost nobody, with rare exceptions).
I think one of the points I didn’t quite manage to make is that, in this situation, there isn’t really a cure (and you can’t find one in six months). I’m reminded of Bean from Ender’s Shadow, who finds out that he’s only going to live to about 20. The medical team researching him wishes that he could help, genius that he is, but Bean was taught warfare, not biology.
You raise a good point, though, that if you are really good at something, you should probably keep doing it—much like Bean helps Peter Wiggin wage his war.
Well, obviously step 1 is look for a cure. But I think the answer is absolutely “live life as normal, but with a personal time horizon of 6 months.” If I have 70 years to live, that’s plenty of time to slowly learn a field of work and do some interesting stuff. If I have 6 months, I can work on maybe one idea. My time is probably much better spent on evangelism and just having a good time—if the expected value of my work goes down and the value of time spent having fun is fixed, I should have more fun.
Aha. It sounds like working for love, not a paycheck. I would instantly quit my job as it the opposite case. That would be actually one of the upsides of it. Sometimes the dream of never seeing the inside of an office again feels like it would worth a high price… although not as high as that. But 5 out of 7 days wasted on office fuckery to make someone else rich and achieve pretty much nothing is else actually another kind of a short lifespan—maybe long in the gross, but short in the net, living only 2⁄7 of it.
If I could start over, it is possible I would choose a “fun” major instead of a “safe” one AND not start a family before I have a “fun” (or “meaningful”, “world-changing”) job.
Or maybe not. I have the impression that enjoyable jobs are for neurotypicals because they involve things like networking to get a job. With “safe majors” one can just apply to job advertisements on monster.com this is why I chose it, so that I never have to eat lunch with people I don’t personally want to (which, to be fair, is almost nobody, with rare exceptions).
You could anonymously hire an assassin to kill you in exactly six months. Then you could finally live free! (Not a serious advice.)
Also, you might enjoy reading this book. (Somewhat related, also this one.)
You might also experience intense annoyance, though, as I did.
I think one of the points I didn’t quite manage to make is that, in this situation, there isn’t really a cure (and you can’t find one in six months). I’m reminded of Bean from Ender’s Shadow, who finds out that he’s only going to live to about 20. The medical team researching him wishes that he could help, genius that he is, but Bean was taught warfare, not biology.
You raise a good point, though, that if you are really good at something, you should probably keep doing it—much like Bean helps Peter Wiggin wage his war.