What's the Meaning of Life?
Recently I have been racking my brain trying to make a choice that will affect the rest of my life. I have the choice of either keeping on this corporate path towards executive success, or I can abandon my progress so far and take a job working with kids where I would feel good about myself every night when I went home. The choice may seem easy at first glance (it did, I thought, but I'm still unsure of my choice) but when you're someone like me and think about the ramifications 10, 20, 30 years down the line it becomes much more difficult. I moved to San Diego with the intention of trying my hand at teaching, as working with kids is far more rewarding for me than basically anything else I do. However, it was much harder to find a decent teaching job that didn't require me to waste another year (and a year's tuition) going to school to learn absolutely nothing just because I'm required to have a piece of paper saying I did so.
Part of my problem is that I have no idea what I really want to do with myself. I have always been an ADD guy, going from one thing to the next because I become bored quite quickly and am always looking for a new challenge. I hate being stuck in a rut where nothing new is introduced to stimulate my mind. That is why I chose to leave Burlingame High School despite the nice social scene and the gorgeous girls (especially the cheerleaders...something I didn't get to enjoy at Exeter) for the far more challenging Phillips Exeter Academy despite the vast distance and snow-filled winters. But even when I am being challenged I am sometimes unsatisfied because I don't find the challenge to have any meaning, that it's simply challenging for the sake of making me busy. Being overwhelmed with easy work is challenging because it's tough to get through, but it's empty and makes me feel like I am wasting my time.
To me time is finite, I only have 75 years of life to live (the other years of my life, if I actually live longer than that, will be filled with medical treatment and the other unpleasant aspects of old age) and I want to leave this world having been worthy of life. I believe that life is a privelage, our ancestors fought to survive in order for future generations to live in a better world. It is my obligation as a living being to do my part in leaving this world a better place than when I entered it. So how is processing 50 IRA applications 5 days a week doing my part? I'm just living day-to-day without any purpose other than earning money to live. That is why I volunteer with the Rec Center's youth basketball program (and hopefully they'll have the money to do football again this year), because without doing a little something to give back I will be forever unfulfilled.
So for me to give back, I might just have to take that teaching job I've been offered. But then I will be making a teacher's salary with no chance of ever being a high-roller. That may sound greedy, but my ultimate dream would be to donate $1,000,000,000 to inner-city schools and that will never happen if I'm making $35,000 for the next 20 years. The only way to make a real impact on today's society as a whole (as opposed to having impact on individual kids) is to be highly influential and the only people who have influence nowadays are politicians, celebrities and billionaires. Since I have too many opinions to be a politician, let my celebrity train pass long ago (made the choice as an 11-year-old to turn down offers to move to LA to become an Actor/Model), the only real route for me to have the impact that I think I should have, I need to become incredibly wealthy.
I live my life with deadlines, I can't really function without a deadline to work towards. Even when travelling by myself around the country without any specific itinerary I always had to set some kind of daily goal for myself. If I woke up in Texas, I HAD to wake up the next morning in another state, even if it meant driving 600 miles (or 1000 once...but that was coming home from New Orleans after the semester) in a single day. So I see this pending deadline of age 25 being a major one in my life. I turn 25 a month from today and I still feel like I am trying to figure out my path in life. When I was in high school, I always figured I'd be entrenched in a career at this point, even owning my own home and getting ready to start a family. Now that feels like it's another 5+ years away and that scares me. Like when contributing to an IRA or 401k, every year you delay costs you exponentially. If a 22 year old starts at a company and becomes a partner in 8 years, he still has 25+ years of partner-level earning and influence. But if that same guy doesn't start his partnership till age 40 instead of 30, he's only got about 15+ years left and already has lost a fortune in those 10 wasted years. So sometimes I feel like I should build up my finances, concentrate on myself until I retire from the private sector only to retire to teaching. But then I might miss changing the lives for hundreds of kids for the better. For all I know, I could miss the chance to influence one kid to become the next Nelson Mandela or Bill Gates (including the charity) and maybe that's the impact I was born to make. But teaching might just be the easy way out, as basically any relatively intelligent (or not) person can teach middle schoolers. I was supposed to make my choice Friday, then Sunday...now it's Monday and I think I'm leaning towards teaching, but if my blogs are any indication, I can change my mind in the middle of a sentence and tend to regret the choices I didn't make.
So that leaves me with the final question: What's the meaning of life? Is it love? Money? Power? Findinf a niche? Until I figure that answer out, life will always be series of difficult choices. But then again, maybe that's the meaning of life: The meaning of life is the search for meaning in life.
Part of my problem is that I have no idea what I really want to do with myself. I have always been an ADD guy, going from one thing to the next because I become bored quite quickly and am always looking for a new challenge. I hate being stuck in a rut where nothing new is introduced to stimulate my mind. That is why I chose to leave Burlingame High School despite the nice social scene and the gorgeous girls (especially the cheerleaders...something I didn't get to enjoy at Exeter) for the far more challenging Phillips Exeter Academy despite the vast distance and snow-filled winters. But even when I am being challenged I am sometimes unsatisfied because I don't find the challenge to have any meaning, that it's simply challenging for the sake of making me busy. Being overwhelmed with easy work is challenging because it's tough to get through, but it's empty and makes me feel like I am wasting my time.
To me time is finite, I only have 75 years of life to live (the other years of my life, if I actually live longer than that, will be filled with medical treatment and the other unpleasant aspects of old age) and I want to leave this world having been worthy of life. I believe that life is a privelage, our ancestors fought to survive in order for future generations to live in a better world. It is my obligation as a living being to do my part in leaving this world a better place than when I entered it. So how is processing 50 IRA applications 5 days a week doing my part? I'm just living day-to-day without any purpose other than earning money to live. That is why I volunteer with the Rec Center's youth basketball program (and hopefully they'll have the money to do football again this year), because without doing a little something to give back I will be forever unfulfilled.
So for me to give back, I might just have to take that teaching job I've been offered. But then I will be making a teacher's salary with no chance of ever being a high-roller. That may sound greedy, but my ultimate dream would be to donate $1,000,000,000 to inner-city schools and that will never happen if I'm making $35,000 for the next 20 years. The only way to make a real impact on today's society as a whole (as opposed to having impact on individual kids) is to be highly influential and the only people who have influence nowadays are politicians, celebrities and billionaires. Since I have too many opinions to be a politician, let my celebrity train pass long ago (made the choice as an 11-year-old to turn down offers to move to LA to become an Actor/Model), the only real route for me to have the impact that I think I should have, I need to become incredibly wealthy.
I live my life with deadlines, I can't really function without a deadline to work towards. Even when travelling by myself around the country without any specific itinerary I always had to set some kind of daily goal for myself. If I woke up in Texas, I HAD to wake up the next morning in another state, even if it meant driving 600 miles (or 1000 once...but that was coming home from New Orleans after the semester) in a single day. So I see this pending deadline of age 25 being a major one in my life. I turn 25 a month from today and I still feel like I am trying to figure out my path in life. When I was in high school, I always figured I'd be entrenched in a career at this point, even owning my own home and getting ready to start a family. Now that feels like it's another 5+ years away and that scares me. Like when contributing to an IRA or 401k, every year you delay costs you exponentially. If a 22 year old starts at a company and becomes a partner in 8 years, he still has 25+ years of partner-level earning and influence. But if that same guy doesn't start his partnership till age 40 instead of 30, he's only got about 15+ years left and already has lost a fortune in those 10 wasted years. So sometimes I feel like I should build up my finances, concentrate on myself until I retire from the private sector only to retire to teaching. But then I might miss changing the lives for hundreds of kids for the better. For all I know, I could miss the chance to influence one kid to become the next Nelson Mandela or Bill Gates (including the charity) and maybe that's the impact I was born to make. But teaching might just be the easy way out, as basically any relatively intelligent (or not) person can teach middle schoolers. I was supposed to make my choice Friday, then Sunday...now it's Monday and I think I'm leaning towards teaching, but if my blogs are any indication, I can change my mind in the middle of a sentence and tend to regret the choices I didn't make.
So that leaves me with the final question: What's the meaning of life? Is it love? Money? Power? Findinf a niche? Until I figure that answer out, life will always be series of difficult choices. But then again, maybe that's the meaning of life: The meaning of life is the search for meaning in life.
posted by Dan Pasternack at 12:20 PM
1 Comments:
Dan: interesting blog and I sympathize with your dilemma. But, you are still young and there are still unknown and exciting options that are ahead of you. After all, at your age I was an engineer and not sure where I was going. So, let's try to problem solve together. Want to come here for a visit?
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