I also see a lot of career/life advice here that seems like it might be good for some and bad for others. I this results from variance in what we want and enjoy, and a blindness to it. Our culture (at least academic and tech culture) preaches ambition.
I frequently caution those in grad school against ambition. I’ve seen ambition take a high toll from too many bright young people, and seen them later declare that they’re happier after deciding to focus more on quality-of-life than ambition.
This is an extremely deep topic. There are important questions about what our ultimate goals really are. I suspect most of us want love and respect from ourselves and those around us, and to enjoy what we do moment by moment. But opinions vary, even once they’re well-thought-out. I think the remembering self is just a set of moments of the experiencing self, and shouldn’t be privileged in making life-decisions. But again, opinions vary.
These questions don’t answer the strategy question of how to best pursue your personal goals, but they do help frame it. I’m frequently astonished by how little time very smart people have spent on considering what they really want from life. Hopefully, rationalists do this more than the academics and startup types I’m more familiar with.
I frequently caution those in grad school against ambition. I’ve seen ambition take a high toll from too many bright young people, and seen them later declare that they’re happier after deciding to focus more on quality-of-life than ambition.
I feel like there’s a trick being played by the word “ambition” here. By the literal definition of the word you can be ambitious about anything, including quality of life. Ambition would just mean aiming for a very high QOL by your own definition. But yeah, it often gets narrowed into “succeed at this particular thing by particular metrics”, and I imagine being told to give up on ambition is very freeing in those cases.
The advice to self angle is great.
I also see a lot of career/life advice here that seems like it might be good for some and bad for others. I this results from variance in what we want and enjoy, and a blindness to it. Our culture (at least academic and tech culture) preaches ambition.
I frequently caution those in grad school against ambition. I’ve seen ambition take a high toll from too many bright young people, and seen them later declare that they’re happier after deciding to focus more on quality-of-life than ambition.
This is an extremely deep topic. There are important questions about what our ultimate goals really are. I suspect most of us want love and respect from ourselves and those around us, and to enjoy what we do moment by moment. But opinions vary, even once they’re well-thought-out. I think the remembering self is just a set of moments of the experiencing self, and shouldn’t be privileged in making life-decisions. But again, opinions vary.
These questions don’t answer the strategy question of how to best pursue your personal goals, but they do help frame it. I’m frequently astonished by how little time very smart people have spent on considering what they really want from life. Hopefully, rationalists do this more than the academics and startup types I’m more familiar with.
I feel like there’s a trick being played by the word “ambition” here. By the literal definition of the word you can be ambitious about anything, including quality of life. Ambition would just mean aiming for a very high QOL by your own definition. But yeah, it often gets narrowed into “succeed at this particular thing by particular metrics”, and I imagine being told to give up on ambition is very freeing in those cases.