Last week some guy who irritated me and basically questioned my work ethic/manhood asked me what my future goals were. Anyone who has read more than five posts on this blog knows I have no goals. I am a confused guy struggling to find my way in the world. I am confident I will get there, but honestly, I am not the kind of guy who is ever going to verbalize future goals. I am superstitious enough to believe that verbalization will guarantee my failure. I am also realistic enough to think that future goals change daily and are dependent on an amount of luck. My only real goal is to live, and I think that is everyone's real goal.
I gave some quick and unthoughtful answer. But here are some possible professional goals that I might pursue in the future.
- I want to convince and cajole other similar professionals that every problem is not empirical. I want them to see that many problems cannot be simplified into observable data. I want them realize how foolish some of their answers are.
- I want to be a professional who contributes to solutions. I don't care how small or temporary the problems are, but I want to be part of recognizable and implementable, not optimal, solutions.
- I want to describe problems in the truest light I can. I don't want to ignore attributes without admitting that I am ignoring them. I don't believe in objectivity, but I want really "call things like I see them."
4 comments:
A professional is the opposite of an amateur. The origin of the word amateur is French and meant "lover of." So a an amateur does it for the love of the game/ activity, while a professional is one who does it for some other reason (money). Perhaps it is better to be a skilled amateur than a professional?
But you have to do something for money, don't you? The line between amateur and professional in a way is getting blurred. As graduate students, we have to be somewhere in between, and I think it makes it tougher than if we're just amateurs or professionals.
If you don't love what you do for a living you need a new job. Having no goals is better than having unrealistic/unobtainable ones. I'm sorry to say your first goal is a lost cause. The second one is possible if you meet the right people (i.e. are lucky). The third one is all up to you. Myself, I live by the third one and so far it's done me quite well.
My boss asked me earlier today how we could fix a problem (one that's been around for years) that's been cutting into our cash flow. I told him "Get rid of the moron you have running this program and get someone with balls to take it over." I left his office with a promotion and a $15K raise. Of course, in other situations I may have been fired so your mileage may vary.
Do what let's you sleep at night and that lets you look at the man in the mirror without questioning your intentions. Fuck everything else.
George Carlin was a profession. Barack Obama is an amateur chump.
Jeff,
You're exactly right. Three is the only one I can really control. The other two will always leave me blaming "them" and "they" instead of being me.
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