Learning is more important than a neatly constructed career

It's very difficult to figure out what you want to do with your life. People, including me, say "I have so many interests that I can’t narrow them down", but that is a cop out. Probably the honest answer is that we're afraid to figure out what we want in our lives.

I picked writing early on in life. I wanted to be an author or some kind of journalist; to have my own column maybe. I’ve realized, however, that these are intensely competitive jobs that I don’t want to devote that much time and energy to. Which makes me think I’m just not a passionate person.

But then I think I’m just not passionate about that particular career. I could be passionate about something else. That means it’s something different than what I always thought.

I picked marketing next, specifically web marketing and social media – new cool stuff that is interesting and exciting and always changing. My dad is a salesman and I was always told I could do just what he does fabulously. An easy choice.

But then I realized marketers’ goals is to sell people stuff that they don’t necessarily need. I don’t want to be partially responsible for cluttering people’s minds and homes. And after a while, reading about the latest technology that will interrupt you on your phone got boring to me too. I don’t want to invade people’s privacy, I want to make the organizations in power more accountable to the people.

Which leads me to think right now that what I really want is to go into politics – which is another something that I always kind of wanted to do. I wanted to be the Secretary of State, that’s why I majored in international studies. There is a lot about politics that terrifies me, but, the further away I get from the stress of the wedding, the more I think it’s dumb that it terrifies me. That I could handle Politics just fine. Look at all the idiots who are doing it right now.

But it makes me scared to commit to politics or education or both because I don’t see a track that I could follow. It’s also scary because I’ve always thought about getting into politics or education, so what makes them any different than writing? What makes me think I could succeed or enjoy or be passionate about them?

The fact is you don't know until you try. It doesn’t matter if there’s a track laid out. I committed to writing and that didn’t work. I can always keep writing, and I can always come back to it. I should try web marketing just for kicks and see if that’s more fun than it looks.

What terrifies me the most is waking up 20 years from now and not know what happened to my life. Does that happen to everyone? Can we avoid it? I feel like telling myself to look for small ways to help is a cop out. That I can do better than that. Is that because I’m part of Gen Y, and we were told from birth we could be the president, so anything less feels unsatisfactory?

But you can only see a common thread through someone’s career in retrospect, unless they knew what they wanted to do from the very beginning. Which is a pretty boring way to go through life, in my opinion. It's more interesting and fulfilling to try new things, always do your best, and keep learning all along no matter what.

When to stop writing lists

I read something the other day about a blogger being frustrated that no one gave him/her a map of what to do when you're a grownup. The blogger said added a parenthetical: (like all Gen Yers) and that resonated with me so much.

I was complaining to myself today at lunch about why no one tells me things relevant to social situations I find myself in. Like how to behave one someone does this. Or what it means when someone says this. Or what people do in this situation.

Sometimes, I think I have Asperger's or some Autism-spectrum issue because I so often feel like I'm barely keeping up with what's going on around me. This makes me feel like a loser who can't get her life together and makes way too many mistakes to ever be successful.

I've read a fair amount on Asperger's and Autism out of general interest, but my personal diagnosis comes from two places:

- that my mom has said she thinks my dad has Asperger's and there's a hereditary element to it, and
- what I read from Penelope Trunk's blog.

Not very good sources, admittedly.

Penelope has Asperger's and talks a lot about developing, testing, and following rules for social encounters. She talks a lot about many other things she does to cope with this disease that aren't relevant to me, but that always sticks. All the time, I want to write down all the different rules that exist for me to follow in a given day so I remember it all and have it all pulled together.

But then I think about what that blogger said and wonder if plenty of Gen Yers have this same issue: a hard time navigating the world. Just about my entire life was mapped our and prescribed to me in syllabis, course catalogs, and progress reports. I was a Girl Scout, where you completed a list of specific steps and got a badge. I played tennis, where you showed up at certain times, did certain things, and had a specific rank on the team which dictated which matches you played.

Today, I write list after list after list of things I own, things I need, tasks to accomplish, food to buy, nutrients to consume every day, exercises to preform. I fantasize about creating a giant master list with all the steps I need to take and all the rules I need to follow in a day so I can have one day that's totally pulled together and I'm completely in control and getting everything done smoothly, gracefully, and efficiently.

But it's not lists that are the solution. Even if I mapped out tomorrow down to the minute, all I would do is react the same way I used to react to a semester's worth of reading assignments: do a little bit as I go, wait to the last minute and then do it all at once.

And maybe (probably) this isn't a problem unique to Gen Y. Older generations often had just as, or even more, prescribed lives than we did. Maybe Gen Y's uniqueness comes from how hyper-aware and well trained in the art of reflection we are.

So what is the solution?

Maybe it's accepting that everyone goes through their days feeling a little bit out of control, not accomplishing everything that they want and making mistakes, and that is simply the way people live and it's ok.

Maybe it's also understanding that what I interpret as people having everything pulled together is really people doing a good job behaving gracefully even when they feel that little bit lost that everyone feels.

If I can't control every minute of my life with lists, at least I can control how I act, react, and behave as I muddle through. More specific instructions and guidelines aren't the answer - letting going, to a certain degree, of intense and continuous assessment of every task I'm working on is probably closer to the answer.

I just read a really fascinating article from The Atlantic published June 2009 about the Harvard Grant study, which “followed 268 men who entered college in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age” to try and answer the question: “is there a formula—some mix of love, work, and psychological adaptation—for a good life?”

It depends on how one defines a good life. If there is one single thing you aim and strive for in life, be it money, fame, children, whatever, then you're missing out on the MIX part, the balance that I think is necessary to be happy.

If the definition of a successfully life is a long one which, at the end of it, one feels generally happy and feels generally well, then here’s what you have to do:

• Use mature adaptations (more on that below),
• Get educated,
  
• Maintain a stable marriage,
• Not smoke,
• Not abuse alcohol,
• Get some exercise,
• Maintain a healthy weight,
• And maintain good relationships, especially with your siblings.

Note the importance of the verb maintain there. I didn't do that on purpose, that's just how these things have to be written if you want to make them an actionable command. These are things that you have to work at over time - your whole life in fact.

The funny thing about the article is, after so many years of tests and surveys and research, the results are very simple and straightforward. I suppose it's the putting them into practice that is the hard part. When asked what the secret to a good life is, psychiatrist George Vaillant, who has been the chief curator of this study for 42 years, essentially said two things:

“That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.”

and

“What we do, [as in our work] affects how we feel just as much as how we feel affects what we do.”

For me, that means people, to be live a long, happy, healthy life, need a purpose: work that keeps them busy and means something, contributes to the larger world in a positive way and good relationships with other people.

The article explained adaptations as defenses against emotional challenges we face, large and small, every day. There are four levels:

• Psychotic: “like paranoia, hallucination, or megalomania, which, while they can serve to make reality tolerable for the person employing them, seem crazy to anyone else.”
• Immature: “acting out, passive aggression, hypochondria, projection, and fantasy. These aren’t as isolating as psychotic adaptations, but they impede intimacy.”
• Neurotic: which “are common in “normal” people. These include intellectualization (mutating the primal stuff of life into objects of formal thought); dissociation (intense, often brief, removal from one’s feelings); and repression."
  
• And mature: altruism, humor, anticipation (looking ahead and planning for future discomfort), suppression (a conscious decision to postpone attention to an impulse or conflict, to be addressed in good time), and sublimation (finding outlets for feelings, like putting aggression into sport, or lust into courtship).”

It seems like all the people who drive me nuts, that I very much dislike, and can't stand generally, exhibit immature adaptations. Isn't that comforting?

I didn't understand the intellectualization adaptation, which is why I looked it and most of the others up and linked to their Wikipedia articles. I think I didn't fully understand it because I use it. I don't feel to bad though, because Bones uses it to a much greater extreme than I do.

Maybe because I'm a virgo, but I had a lot of fun looking to see where I fit into all of this.

I have pretty good relationships with my family, and I have good friends who are important to me and I think I'm important to them.

I'm well educated, I think, and plan to be more so.

I don't exercise enough and I probably drink too much. That doesn't bother me at the moment, but I'm beginning to think I ought to pay more attention now, in my young-and-healthy-20s. So that's something I know I need to work on.

I'm getting married in September and I couldn't be happier about it, so I although I know we need to work at maintaining our relationship for the long haul, I'm optimistic.

And as for adaptations, I think I use humor, anticipation, and supression effectively, but opt for projection and intellectualization than altruism or sublimination. But it was also comforting that the study showed, over time, nearly all the subjects gradually adopted "mature" adaptations and shed the lower ones.

This led me to think: what about when I KNOW I'm acting out, being passive aggressive, and projecting as a reaction to some emotional unpleasentness, and that there's a better reaction, but react that way anyway? Is that just immaturity that will go away with time; just me being 23 and taking advantage of the opportunity to sort of get away with it? Or is it truly immature behavior that I need to work on? Honestly, sometimes its more satisfying to slam a door or whine or blame the weather than take responsibility for myself, even when I know its wrong, if only for a little while. I suppose it is for everyone.

Maybe, being an "adult" in Gen Y is about striving for the always doing the right thing, but, unlike other generations, being ok when you don't make it. As long as you're honest about the process.

How to take on day at a time

It never fails: I post or talk about productivity and, immediately after, experience my least productive day in a long while. Why? Discipline.

I've read before, but I can't find the source now, that discipline is like any muscle in your body. That idea became one of those quick-hits that resonated with me immediately. Of course it is - there isn't necessarily something innately wrong with me or anyone else you has little self-discipline, me or that other person simply hasn't made exercising self-discipline a priority.

I'm Gen Y, guys, I get what I want when I want it, remember?

But how do you strengthen your discipline muscle? Here's what I'm trying.

I'm starting small. During one of my many attempts to Go to the Gym Every Day for Real, You Guys, I'd spend more than an hour working out and loving it. I was totally feeling and loving that burn, you know? Doing circuits after circuits, rocking out, being a gym hero. The gym I went to was totally going to hire me a spokesperson after that day.

Then I'd spend 30 mins at the gym the next day. Then I'd skip the next day. And then next. Then it was Friday and I had plans for the weekend. I'd fizzle out and spend a month ignoring the fact I wasn't going before feeling guilty enough to start all over again.

Not any more. New goal for getting in shape? Just getting up at the same time every morning and going to the gym. I don't even care if I walk on the treadmill and watch infomercials for 30 minutes while I'm half asleep. I aim to just show up and do something.

Same with my other personal goal: eat healthier. The number one thing I'd like to do better in that realm is just eat my goddamn breakfast. I don't even care if its a single piece of toast - the point is I can't say I'm going to go from eating nothing to making a traditional Irish breakfast feast every morning and expect it actually happen.

My other personal improvement goal is to read more. I used to read books like no one's business. Then a little thing called College came in and made reading about speed and counting pages. Lame! I have my list of books and I'm going to start carrying around the first one on that list everywhere I go. And I'm going to read for 10 or 20 minutes every day while I eat lunch. I'd like to get to read a book a week (all the Smart People on the Internet do that, you guys) but if it takes me two months to get through that first book, so be it. I'm establishing a habit through consistent behaviors.

When I won't want to go to the gym or read, it'll be easier to do it because the bar is low. Once it's easy to meet that bar, I raise it a little. But my self-discipline muscle will be all warmed up by then, so it won't see quite so hard.

Or so I think. We'll see how it goes.

My Relationship with Barak Obama

When Obama was running for office, I thought sure, it's easy to vote for Hope and Change and the Future, but it's much harder to talk about the nitty gritty and be realistic about how this country is going to improve itself. I think I wanted to see him as just another demagogue playing off people's emotions to get himself some power.

But guys: I really like the guy. I think he genuinely cares about things. When he talks to people, I think he wants them to understand where he's coming from. I think he doesn't care if they disagree on the details, but that it's possible to bring people together around the big picture and work out a solution, even if the process is messy. I love that.

That's why, generally, I've had a high opinion of him over the last two years even though I generally disagree with his politics. We both understand what the problems are, we just need to compromise on how to fix them.

But I can't agree more with the sentiments in this piece, esp this:

At the end of the day, the boss of the MMS is Barack Obama. At the end of the day, the person charged with the safety of America’s people and land is Barack Obama. That role cannot be fulfilled with a panel of experts, nor Nobel prize winners, nor commissions. Put another way, you do not change the world by saying, “I urge the Commission to complete its work as quickly as possible."

I want Barack Obama to kick some ass, but after the oil is cleaned up. I want him to put BP and Haliburton and MMS and Transocean each in the hot seat and hold them all respsonsible, but I also want him to hold his government responsible too. I don't necessarily think the government should take over the clean up—I'm not sure what I think about that—but I do think that after the thrird or fifth time BP failed to stem the flow of oil, SOMETHING should have happened. Let the other's play the blame game, Obama, you're focus should be on What To Do Now.

And I know you're just one man, and I firmly believe that it's not always The Government's Job to fix things, but you're our leader, our inspiration. Americans are sickened and they don't want more blah blah.

It's funny that today, Frank Chimero also posted this on his blog, because, in regard to the oil spill but also many other Things going on in the wide world, my generation feels like this. What do we have? Is our frontier the Internet? Technology? Can we really be that excited about something so intangible?

I believe Gen Y can be the Next Great Generation, but first we need something to be excited about and inspired by. Obama did that, but it seems like the Government Machine is grinding him up just like everyone else.


NOTE: I also found this article on Reason Magazine about the oil spill that's very, very interesting. You can bet your boots I'm going to be spending a lot of time reading about government failure.

ANOTHER NOTE: Check this out if you want to learn more; I added it to my Amazon wishlist.

Gen Y Angst

It's been one of those weeks where creeping doubt and worry have turned me into a bit of a mess, now that it's Thursday.

Why am I still wasting time here? How come I can't be more productive? What do I want to do with my life? Is a career even that important? But what if I wind up stuck here for years and years and years and never AMOUNT to anything?

The lack of cashflow is making retail and/or booze therapy impossible. Luckily, I just made some bread so carb therapy is still an option. Ideally, I can replace that with exercise, but we'll see how the night goes.

Ridiculous Item of the Day

In the spirit of CW's blog, here's a ridiculous item of the day for you, this time in higher education. One of my favorite pieces, from Gary Pavela, director of academic integrity at Syracuse University and, according to the USA Today story, author of numerous articles about student conduct:

"'And sometimes a private, candid conversation with an offending student helps.'"

Oh, you mean treat the student like an ADULT? Because, you know, he or she IS ONE?

And this is another doozy about W. Scott Lewis, associate general counsel of Saint Mary's College, in Indiana, and president of the Association for Student Conduct Administration. He

"gives seminars for many colleges through the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, and he said that a consistently popular topic is how to train faculty members to manage their classrooms in ways that enable them to be respected by students. "We don't train faculty members on that," he said. "They are trained to be great physicists and political scientists, not on how to manage a classroom.""

What? College professors don't know anything about teaching? Isn't that their job? Shouldn't people who TEACH know how to manage a classroom? (This trickles down to high school and below, but let's not go there today.) The assumption here, like in so many places (the company you work for, I'd wager) is that if someone is good at their job, be it being an economist or being a salesperson, then that someone is qualified to teach/lead others when the teaching and leading actually require a completely different set of skills.

I'm not even halfway through the article at this point.

I love that these experts start talking about how to get students to respect you, as a university professor: wear business casual clothes, have students address you as professor or Dr. Newsflash: students don't respect people who cling to superficial displays of power or influence or whatever. They respect people who treat them with respect, who know what they are talking about, and who do their job. I'd had lots of professors who wore nice clothes and who didn't have us call them by their first names, but I respected them for showing me a new way to think about literature, or politics, or the psychology of economics.

And of course there's a dig in there at the entitled attitude of Gen Yers: Lewis said students "these days" have this sense because of their parents. Yah, but let me show you a few choice Gen Xers and Baby Boomers who think the world is their oyster. Someone people think the world revolves around them, buddy, that's a fact of life. Sure, Gen Y is pretty entitled. I can be a big baby, and am often. But I'm 23 years old, what's my middle-aged boss' excuse?

The kicker? This assessment is followed by the addition that "many more [students] have mental health issues, and many feel significant stress over the economy."

Are you freaking kidding me. Students are no more prone to mental health issues than any other population group. Instead, students are under pressure to acheive and are asserting independence by swearing colorfully and often, drinking themselves stupid, and doing other scary, unorthodox things like not wearing shoes, wearing unconventional outfits, playing frisbee at all hours of the night, etc. And students are stressed by the economy so they are swearing more? Yah? So? Isn't everyone? How is this something that needs to be pointed out to professors?

Writing about Talking, Part Two: Open Conversation and Healthy Sex

Since sex is by far the most interesting of the three taboo topics (politics and money aren’t as…sexy…), let’s start there.

For me, the bottom line is that open and honest communication makes for a better quality of life in any situation. Healthy sexual lives begin with open and honest communication from parents.

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry says:

By developing open, honest and ongoing communication about responsibility, sex, and choice, parents can help their youngsters learn about sex in a healthy and positive manner.

And then maybe when their youngsters grow up to be horny teenagers, they won’t be emotionally scarred or scar anyone else because sex isn’t Evil, Scary, and thus Forbidden. Yay!

My sexual experiences have all be positive because I had a network of support. There was always a friend to call up and commiserate, celebrate, or compare notes with. I was rarely scared or worried for long about whether I was normal or whether he was normal. Sex is just like anything else: when you’re trying something new for the first time, you want to know what it was like for others to gauge your own experiences. Without honest conversation, you’re alone, worried, fumbling in the dark. And that is way less fun.

Gen Y, on the whole, is mostly through the sexual awakening part. Now, it’s about figuring out how sex fits into the discussion: what counts as TMI, what we should be more open about, and what is ok in certain situations.

Let’s take a casual, social situation: Saturday night; drinks at home; mixed company; you know everyone there pretty well.

For the record, 99% of the time I won’t be embarrassed and would love to talk about sex. But like I said, I had a lot of positive experiences. There are plenty of people who don’t feel that way. So my default setting is don’t bring it up, unless they do first.

But alternatively, ask if the person if they are comfortable talking about whatever sexy thing is on your mind. And if the conversation gets steamier, it’d be considerate to check in and make sure no one is getting uncomfortable. Hopefully they’d say something to the effect of “Guys, this is a little much, who wants some more dip?”, but you should probably check anyway.

From there it’s a scale. Maybe if you’re with just the guys (though I’ve heard men don’t really talk about sex like this? Opinions gentlemen?), or with a group of your oldest friends and there’s a higher threshold of what’s ok. If you’re at a party where you don’t know most of the people – I’d say that calls for a very low threshold.

Since lots, if not most, of Gen Y social interactions take place online, however, what are the guidelines for that? This is where our society, and legal system, are still figuring out what’s appropriate. Sexual harassment happens online, and people are empowered by the level of anonymity the Internet affords.

I’d say if you’re writing in your blog, you can say whatever you like and your readers will either continue reading or stop if they’re uncomfortable. Then it becomes about writing for your audience.

Dragging people into conversations, however, is not appropriate. Like, posting sexy comments on a Facebook wall. If you don’t know that person’s threshold, don’t. Plus, you don’t know what their privacy settings are, maybe they are keeping their wall PG for mom and dad’s sake.

And it can become a fine line between being open and funny and being a pervert that skeeves people out instead of contributing to a healthy dialogue about sex.

Don’t be that guy.

Writing about Talking, Part One

Last week, I wrote about conversations in polite company and I realized I have a lot more to say about that.

What if that is just a form of censorship? Censorship is my nemesis. So I thought about it.

Think about this: so many people don’t want to talk about money, and the result is a population that is hugely under-educated about how the financial system works. Thus, the chaos that was 2009. It’s not polite to talk about how much you make, but if salaries were transparent there wouldn’t be jealousy or backbiting at work. (Probably there still would be; you’d also need a regular, honest, and trustworthy system for reviews, which is another post.)

And sex. I live in a liberated and most liberal bubble and have been largely insulated from feeling Weird or Unhealthy because it’s been easy for me to talk to friends about sex. Wouldn’t it be great if sex wasn’t Evil or Sanctified and Serios (depending on who you talk to), but an awesome part of life people could talk about if they wanted to? (If they want to being the key.)

So coming up are a series of posts (whoa, my first ever series) that talk about talking, what’s polite, what’s ok, and more. I’m doing this because I have so many things I want t talk about and each one deserves it’s own post. I can’t guarantee that they will go in any kind of order or that they’ll be one day after the next, because something awesome might happen that I want to tell you about. But they will all share this title, so you can find them easier.

The kicker is that I have a feeling this is An Issue for Generation Y, in the sense that with the new technologies and an almost-generation-spanning agreement in honesty and forthrightness, as well as a burning desire to change the world for the better, we have an opportunity to make up new rules about what is Polite, what is OK, and what is not.