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comment by BrainBurner
BrainBurner  ·  3884 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: BILL WATTERSON: A cartoonist's advice

Thank you for posting this. I'm going through a bit of soul searching myself, as I'm reaching a crossroads in my life. I'm going to be finishing my undergraduate degree after this year and I'm considering my options, as my future is pretty wide open. I'm really trying to decide how I want to live my life. Do I want to invest a lot of time and money into a career? Maybe, that's what a lot of my friends are doing. Law, pharmacy, accounting; these are all solid jobs, especially if you really enjoy them.

But I've started wondering why? What happens when I aquire that high paying job? What do I get out of it? A lot of office time, stress, and money I don't really need? My friends talk about buying cars, tv's, paying for their smart phones, but I don't really care about that stuff. I'd be happy with a small cheap car, basic phone and no TV. Hell, everything I really need I already have here in my apartment.

So this comic really resonates with me because I'd like to reject (modestly) the consumerism around me. I'm still going to get a graduate education, but maybe in a field that I enjoy more, but that perhaps is tougher to find a job in and make a good salary. I really would like to get a job that is challenging but not too demanding. Perhaps I'm being naive and unrealistic. I don't know, but that's really what I would like out of a job and my life.





user-inactivated  ·  3883 days ago  ·  link  ·  
BrainBurner  ·  3883 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Very intriguing, thank you for posting this. I certainly would be interested in this, and I can't say I'd turn down an opportunity to visit Fiji. I don't know if I could do this for a long time though, with my loans and all. But I feel like the program is more suited to a shorter trip, so maybe a trip next summer is in my future...

user-inactivated  ·  3883 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm thinking seriously about it. My future is always quite nebulous so I tend to consider a different opportunity like this every week.

humanodon  ·  3884 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Best of luck man, I'm somewhere in that area myself. If you haven't graduated yet, I highly recommend you talk to a career counselor at your school. If all they have is a bulletin board, make some noise until they hook you up with someone who can help out in a hands-on way. Knowing one's options is probably the best way to figure out how to set oneself up in such a way that a lot of different paths are available.

I say "probably" because I didn't do that and now I wish I had. Office jobs don't have to be forever and having insurance must be pretty nice . . . Anyway, of course choose something you enjoy studying, but it might be worth your while to figure out how you'd like to use it.