I’ve heard (though it is probably not very accurate—more a conversationally useful pop science myth than an empirically universal fact) that the advice parents give to their children varies by socioeconomic status. Poor and working class parents typically give advice like “think about what would make you happy”. Middle class parents tend to suggest staying upstream of abstractly desirable financial options (like in HS and college take strong math, take pre-med so you can be a doctor, and so on). Upper class parents advise doing stuff consistent with finding and making friends with the highest quality people you can find.
In this framework it seems like your parents were giving middle class advice, and your girlfriend gave you working class advice. If I were your parents, I think I would have been somewhat upset. As a general heuristic, be wary of horizontally transmitted advice!
Personally, my object level advice is to young people for whom the middle class or working class life script was a background assumption and have their mind blown by hearing about the other script, is to just suggest that they compare many options along all three of these criteria (happiness, strategy, quality people), and try to find something that works reasonably well with all of them. Then run your plans by your parents to get their honest and caring and historically informed advice.
Another thing that jumped out at me was that it seems like you were thinking of the question as getting a job that defines your identity for the rest of your life, rather than thinking in terms of what to spend the next few years on that would give the highest enduring net value, with trust that you can re-evaluate and adjust in the future, building on the results so far. It seemed like you took for granted that a final decision would determine the whole future rather than being a decision that would precede potentially more important decisions farther down the line.
There’s a meme going around (whose concrete truth is debateable) that “nowadays people will change careers N times in their life”. If N=1 (from child to “something”) then making a huge decision in one’s young adulthood might make sense, but if N=5 then the first one might matter a bit, but you should probably optimize it at least partly so that it gives you information about how to make the next four changes. And if the singularity is really a thing, N could turn out to be larger than most people expect?
The article on the debate about the value of N, written in 2010, says that 2008 might invalidate attempts to collect statistics… but that way of thinking is itself the thing being questioned by people who think N might be high. Crazy economic gyrations from disruptive technology and obsolete institutions is the sort of thing that could cause both a higher value for N, and also macro-level economic instability. Thus if 2008 changed many people’s careers, it incremented n for each such person. If something like 2008 happens again, that would increment n again for all the people it affects.
As meta-level life planning advice, I’ve found generating large lists of theoretically desirable traits that a next step could have, then trimming out (or just down-weighting) the ones that are non-central and statistically redundant, and then churning through lots of options trying to find one that is statistically rare in the awesome direction gives moderately good outcomes.
For reference, neither of my parents went to college, I grew up in a small rural town, I spent four years at a junior college, then four years at a UC, changed majors 3-8 times (depending on how you count), graduated with a BA in philosophy, then bounced between biological research labs and startups, and work at Google now.
The world is big, and “the adjacent possible” seems to be expanding pretty fast lately.
Poor and working class parents typically give advice like “think about what would make you happy”. Middle class parents tend to suggest staying upstream of abstractly desirable financial options (like in HS and college take strong math, take pre-med so you can be a doctor, and so on).
I am really surprised by this. Perhaps it differs per country/region. In my experience the poor are more like “get a trade, any trade, only a thin line separates you from the alcoholic homeless bum down the street or in prison and that thin line is an e.g. construction trade school”. And my middle-class experience is “do what makes you happy, even if you want to be a violinist, I have enough money to help you until you get your feet”
But it can be that it is the definition of poor and middle changes per region or culture. I am used to defining poor as trade school blue collars, literally working class. Perhaps you define as some kind of a welfare underclass who don’t even work or work the growing tide of McJobs learned on the job not in school… I define middle as white-collar, middle manager, or blue-collar turned entrepreneur like a guy owning his plumbing business employing 5 plumbers.
that defines your identity for the rest of your life, rather than thinking in terms of what to spend the next few years
Are these the two major options? I tend to see neither. Whatever you do slaving away for The Man just to be allowed to make a living cannot really define you—okay, I have exaggerated this and made it overly emotional, in order to try to convey a message accross, so feel free to subtract 75% from the emotional connotations of it, but I do think I and many people start from a position of ressentiment and suppressed anger for having to work for bosses in order to make a living instead of living some kind of an idealized existence when you just hunted or grew your food freely and independently, at the very least it is not romantic enough. And changing careers every few years can be very hard, because as you get older, people expect you want more money and is less flexible about overtime and travel (generally true), and if you are not already experienced in whatever work they want you to do why would they not hire someone young, cheap, more flexible, perhaps faster learner, and same way inexperienced? To me experience looks a lot like destiny. Once you did something, people don’t really hire you for something else. Or maybe it depends. Again location etc. but maybe a big corporation that has some kind of a strategic approach to HR would, but my experience in the small business sector is that they hire only when it is overdue and then there is no time to learn.
So I am very suspicious about this career change every 7 years thing. Maybe it depends on factors. Maybe it is a US-only thing or Silicon Valley only thing. Maybe it is for extroverts who get jobs from friends, not just applying for job ads and showing certifications. Maybe they mean under career change actually just doing a bit different field of the same career, like from accountant to auditor.
I am of a third opinion, that basically you owe 40 hours a week to the devil, and the rest is your life, the rest is you.
But it can be that it is the definition of poor and middle changes per region or culture. I am used to defining poor as trade school blue collars, literally working class.
“get a trade, any trade, only a thin line separates you from the alcoholic homeless bum down the street or in prison and that thin line is an e.g. construction trade school”.
The working class with secure jobs (government and some union) are quite a long ways from “the alcoholic bum”. I knew a guy who was a retired garbage man in his mid forties, living off his government pension with a home in a nice neighborhood.
I believe a lot of government jobs allow (allowed?) early retirement based on years of service. Maybe that’s getting more rare, but it’s still the case in the military. A little googling, and it seems that in the military 20 years is still standard and they’re even trying to downsize some guys and are offering them retirement benefits if they’ve been in for 15 years.
Thanks for that rich feedback, really helpful! Didn’t know about the differences between the rich/middle/working class dichotomy, something to keep in mind for a future blog post expansion on this one.
You are right that the 18-year-old me was thinking of job=rest of life, and that’s not a great mode of thought. Good point about the career changes as well. As a college professor now, I try to convey both ideas to students. That’s why the post suggests revising one’s life goals every 3 months or so.
I’m curious about your life planning system. Can you give some more details on how you use it, and some specific examples of how it helped you/others?
I’ve heard (though it is probably not very accurate—more a conversationally useful pop science myth than an empirically universal fact) that the advice parents give to their children varies by socioeconomic status. Poor and working class parents typically give advice like “think about what would make you happy”. Middle class parents tend to suggest staying upstream of abstractly desirable financial options (like in HS and college take strong math, take pre-med so you can be a doctor, and so on). Upper class parents advise doing stuff consistent with finding and making friends with the highest quality people you can find.
In this framework it seems like your parents were giving middle class advice, and your girlfriend gave you working class advice. If I were your parents, I think I would have been somewhat upset. As a general heuristic, be wary of horizontally transmitted advice!
Personally, my object level advice is to young people for whom the middle class or working class life script was a background assumption and have their mind blown by hearing about the other script, is to just suggest that they compare many options along all three of these criteria (happiness, strategy, quality people), and try to find something that works reasonably well with all of them. Then run your plans by your parents to get their honest and caring and historically informed advice.
Another thing that jumped out at me was that it seems like you were thinking of the question as getting a job that defines your identity for the rest of your life, rather than thinking in terms of what to spend the next few years on that would give the highest enduring net value, with trust that you can re-evaluate and adjust in the future, building on the results so far. It seemed like you took for granted that a final decision would determine the whole future rather than being a decision that would precede potentially more important decisions farther down the line.
There’s a meme going around (whose concrete truth is debateable) that “nowadays people will change careers N times in their life”. If N=1 (from child to “something”) then making a huge decision in one’s young adulthood might make sense, but if N=5 then the first one might matter a bit, but you should probably optimize it at least partly so that it gives you information about how to make the next four changes. And if the singularity is really a thing, N could turn out to be larger than most people expect?
The article on the debate about the value of N, written in 2010, says that 2008 might invalidate attempts to collect statistics… but that way of thinking is itself the thing being questioned by people who think N might be high. Crazy economic gyrations from disruptive technology and obsolete institutions is the sort of thing that could cause both a higher value for N, and also macro-level economic instability. Thus if 2008 changed many people’s careers, it incremented n for each such person. If something like 2008 happens again, that would increment n again for all the people it affects.
As meta-level life planning advice, I’ve found generating large lists of theoretically desirable traits that a next step could have, then trimming out (or just down-weighting) the ones that are non-central and statistically redundant, and then churning through lots of options trying to find one that is statistically rare in the awesome direction gives moderately good outcomes.
For reference, neither of my parents went to college, I grew up in a small rural town, I spent four years at a junior college, then four years at a UC, changed majors 3-8 times (depending on how you count), graduated with a BA in philosophy, then bounced between biological research labs and startups, and work at Google now.
The world is big, and “the adjacent possible” seems to be expanding pretty fast lately.
I am really surprised by this. Perhaps it differs per country/region. In my experience the poor are more like “get a trade, any trade, only a thin line separates you from the alcoholic homeless bum down the street or in prison and that thin line is an e.g. construction trade school”. And my middle-class experience is “do what makes you happy, even if you want to be a violinist, I have enough money to help you until you get your feet”
But it can be that it is the definition of poor and middle changes per region or culture. I am used to defining poor as trade school blue collars, literally working class. Perhaps you define as some kind of a welfare underclass who don’t even work or work the growing tide of McJobs learned on the job not in school… I define middle as white-collar, middle manager, or blue-collar turned entrepreneur like a guy owning his plumbing business employing 5 plumbers.
Are these the two major options? I tend to see neither. Whatever you do slaving away for The Man just to be allowed to make a living cannot really define you—okay, I have exaggerated this and made it overly emotional, in order to try to convey a message accross, so feel free to subtract 75% from the emotional connotations of it, but I do think I and many people start from a position of ressentiment and suppressed anger for having to work for bosses in order to make a living instead of living some kind of an idealized existence when you just hunted or grew your food freely and independently, at the very least it is not romantic enough. And changing careers every few years can be very hard, because as you get older, people expect you want more money and is less flexible about overtime and travel (generally true), and if you are not already experienced in whatever work they want you to do why would they not hire someone young, cheap, more flexible, perhaps faster learner, and same way inexperienced? To me experience looks a lot like destiny. Once you did something, people don’t really hire you for something else. Or maybe it depends. Again location etc. but maybe a big corporation that has some kind of a strategic approach to HR would, but my experience in the small business sector is that they hire only when it is overdue and then there is no time to learn.
So I am very suspicious about this career change every 7 years thing. Maybe it depends on factors. Maybe it is a US-only thing or Silicon Valley only thing. Maybe it is for extroverts who get jobs from friends, not just applying for job ads and showing certifications. Maybe they mean under career change actually just doing a bit different field of the same career, like from accountant to auditor.
I am of a third opinion, that basically you owe 40 hours a week to the devil, and the rest is your life, the rest is you.
The working class with secure jobs (government and some union) are quite a long ways from “the alcoholic bum”. I knew a guy who was a retired garbage man in his mid forties, living off his government pension with a home in a nice neighborhood.
It’s unusual (isn’t it?) for anyone to have a government pension in their mid-forties. Any idea how he managed that?
I believe a lot of government jobs allow (allowed?) early retirement based on years of service. Maybe that’s getting more rare, but it’s still the case in the military. A little googling, and it seems that in the military 20 years is still standard and they’re even trying to downsize some guys and are offering them retirement benefits if they’ve been in for 15 years.
Thanks for that rich feedback, really helpful! Didn’t know about the differences between the rich/middle/working class dichotomy, something to keep in mind for a future blog post expansion on this one.
You are right that the 18-year-old me was thinking of job=rest of life, and that’s not a great mode of thought. Good point about the career changes as well. As a college professor now, I try to convey both ideas to students. That’s why the post suggests revising one’s life goals every 3 months or so.
I’m curious about your life planning system. Can you give some more details on how you use it, and some specific examples of how it helped you/others?