You guys. I ripped my pants on the Iron Throne today and I can’t stop laughing about it.
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I Know I'm Supposed To Follow My Passion. But What If I Don't Have A Passion? : NPR -
A young college grad asks an economist for advice.
I’ve been having a lot of conversations in the last couple of years about the ideas we’re taught around passion, hard work, careers, and joy. Growing up I promised myself that I would only build my career around something I loved to do; I wouldn’t come to dread my workday or fall into the trap of a monotonous office job and see my life turn into Office Space.
For a lot of years I even had a skeleton of a plan, with the goal to be a film editor, by way of a communication degree. Then in college I realized how hard it is to follow your dream while also becoming less convinced it really was my dream. I learned I loved communication (as a field of study) and I loved learning and I am pretty good at doing school. So maybe my dream was now to never stop? So sights get set on grad school, but what’s the rush? Let’s take my time to really figure out what I want to study and spend all that money on. Never mind I just finished eighteen years of school - which I more or less loved - and while there’s something to be said about momentum, there’s also something to be said about just taking a break and being selfish and maybe a little indulgent. I’ve found a job I enjoy going to more often than not, learning more about myself and uncovering skills I didn’t know I have. I live comfortably and enjoy the life I’ve found so far.
When I was a young child I announced that I wanted to be a philosopher. I wanted to be paid to sit all day and just share my thoughts and ideas about the world. I guess my dream of being a student for forty years isn’t much different. Six years later and I still haven’t been convinced that being a life long student can actually be a thing worth doing, given the actual cost and the opportunity costs. Or I’ve grown to like my own small life in its way. In any case, I’ve spent six years trying to find what I’m passionate enough about to do day in, day out, for forty years. So far all I’ve come to figure out is that I’m not even sure I want to do what I love most that many hours a week for that many years. I admire people who can do what they love and still love it, but I’m not sure I’m one of them. (I did work at KFC for three summers and I still love KFC. So maybe I’m also selling myself short. Or I need to work in the fried chicken industry.)
Is 'gap year' volunteering a bad thing? -
This was passed around a couple weeks ago, but has been open since then for me to share.
The last book my book club read was Beyond the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo. It’s a non-fiction account of life in one of the slums in Mumbai and while it doesn’t spend a great deal of time discussing the intersections of corruption and Westerner’s good intentions/volunteerism, it does mention it more than once. Before reading this I had been becoming more uncomfortable with the ways I feel and see a lot of privileged Western people and organizations try to donate money or volunteer time without necessarily doing the work to understand what is actually helpful and needed. I don’t mean to demean the good intentions these volunteers and donors have, but it has to get to a point where they are doing just as much harm - if not more - than good.
This article does a good job putting that feeling into more concrete words while also not shaming the desire to help. This is an op-ed, so doesn’t have in depth research or data, which I’d like to see more of somewhere else - to either refute or support the general impression that’s been building for me recently.
willow smith and angela davis
(via shannator)
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