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My wife and I had a conversation about what each of us really wanted to do with our lives. What are we passionate about? What roles do we see ourselves playing in the world? Are we interested in doing one thing for the entirety of our professional lives, or are there several things we want to do?
I think about and struggle with these question a lot, largely because I don't know what I want to do professionally. There doesn't seem to be any one topic or pursuit that so inspires me as to want to engage in it permanently. What I imagined doing as a career when I was six is not the same as what I imagined doing as a career when I was twelve. Ditto when I was sixteen, twenty, twenty-five, and today at thirty.
One problem I have is that I find too many things to be fascinating, and I don't stick to any of them long enough to become a true expert. One month I might be obsessed with reading about medieval history and picturing a career as a historian; the next month I'm watching dozens of hours of some new sport I've learned about and mulling the idea of working for their professional association; not long after that I'm learning how to take pictures with my wife's SLR camera and imagining a life as a photographer; and before I know it I've circled back to mathematics and and once again considering becoming a professional mathematician. My mind wanders from subject to subject, reveling in its novelty for a while, but he moment it becomes routine I become bored with it. A career is by nature routine, and I thus become dissatisfied with where I am rather quickly.
This behavior is not helped by the fact that I am a habitual procrastinator and, to be honest, can be quite lazy. When I undertake new projects, I tend to lose interest or motivation rather quickly, and I manifest that loss of interest by wanting to do something else. I always seem to find motivation to clean the house when I'm at the office, but as soon as I actually get home, I suddenly have the drive to fix some work problem that I had been putting off all day.
Another issue is, frankly, one of vanity. I want to do something in the world that matters, and in some way, I wish it could be traceable back to me. I think this is a major reason why I've dreamed of becoming a scientist or mathematician. A central measure of the impact a researcher makes on the community is how much he is published or cited in academic journals, and I know that were I to make a groundbreaking contribution to some research field, my name would be forever recorded in the annals of academic history.
I often feel my current job as a system administrator is one of the most fungible white-collar positions I could have, outside of being a programmer. I know I'm utterly expendable; thousands of people out there can do exactly what I do, and most of them could probably do it a lot better. I almost always feel that my particular contributions to my company or my profession don't matter. Clever solutions to tricky problems are met with a short afterthought of gratitude, if they're acknowledged at all, then it's right on to the next problem.
I essentially stumbled into an IT position to begin with. I've always enjoyed computers and technology, but in the past my enjoyment was largely consumerist, with a little bit of tinkering on the side. I was an "always upgrade Windows as soon as possible and occasionally troubleshoot a printer" kind of techie. My future mother-in-law noted my computer knowledge and got in touch with a former professional contact to get me into the door at my current employer, and from there I've developed the professional skills I have.
My parents are very active with their church and several charitable organizations in the area. They work with everyone from veterans to the homeless to domestic violence victims to foreign refugees. The positive impact they have on these people's lives is immeasurable, and the world is a better place than it would have been because of them. My admiration of their work, their spirit, their generosity, and their humility is something I can't even properly articulate.
I want to be like that. But I wrestle with pride: wanting to be known for my good work. And to make it worse, I don't even know what I want that good work to be.
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[Last updated: 2022-07-20]