Question Meme

[teaberryblue]

furiosity asked me this question a while ago and I keep flaking on answering it.

Are you in your current career for good or is it a stepping stone to something else for you?

It was funny, because I think in some ways this question highlights the difference in the way F and I approach life, and kind of in a Slytherin/Gryffindor dynamic. Sorry, non-Harry-Potter-nerds on my list. Just trust that it makes sense.

Because it wouldn't even occur to me to think about that!

I haven't read or seen Yes Man, but the way I approach life is very similar to that premise. I generally do whatever seems like the most exciting and fulfulling thing to do right now is.

Right now, I love comics and I love being around them all day. I enjoy my job, my coworkers, and what I do. Will I do it forever? Probably not, but only because I might find something else I love more! Or life might take me somewhere else.

I don't believe in fate or destiny and I do believe in human agency. So life taking me somewhere else isn't one of those "well, I'm meant to do THIS now!" But I do believe that there are always a million options open to people to do all kinds of things. So I will do this until either I get bored, I find something else I like better, this naturally morphs into something else, or there is no longer a need for me here. I don't do five-year plans, unless you're talking about places I want to visit and liquors I want to taste.

The benefits of this job (and every job I have ever had) are that I get to immerse myself in a subject that I want to learn more about all day long.

This is not to say that I don't have any ambitions. It's just that my ambitions are not structured in grand overarching plans. They are more project-oriented-- one of them will be completed in a couple weeks, another one is being completed as we speak. I work a lot better as a piecemeal kind of person and I don't have the patience for long plans. I think the old AA One-Day-At-A-Time way of looking at life is something I subscribe to everything I do. Today, I will draw a comic. Today, I will mix a new cocktail. Today, I will write a page of a novel. And I end up finishing things because all those little todays build up into years, but I don't often look down the road much more than a month or two.

I hope that answers your question! Would anyone like a question? Please comment here!

Comments

[guingel.livejournal.com]

I am happy to hear that this is how you think about things, because I have never had a long-term plan ever. Didn't know what I was majoring in when I got to college, had no clue what I was doing after.

Mostly I think this is because there's never been anything that I loved doing that I was also interested/able to make a career out of. . . People always are saying stuff like "Set your sights on your dream and work towards it, and you can achieve it!" but I've. . . never had a dream. XD

That sounds a bit tragic, but I'm also quite happy where I am now and plan to stay here while it's enjoyable and then see if I need to move on later. But it's tough when my friends are like "OK, I'm going to work here for a few years and then they'll pay for me to go to grad school to study this" and so on and so on.

[zia-narratora.livejournal.com]

I actually DID the "setting your sights on your dream" thing. And I did it. And discovered I HATED doing it. I had that experience a couple times, actually! So then I kind of revised my life-approach. It is a lot more fun to bounce from new thing you like to new thing you like than it is to spend years of your life working to achieve something only to get there and find out you hate it.