Throughout history, people have risked death for the ability to share their ideas. Now almost everyone has unfettered access to the internet and most people are sitting there and thinking “eh, I’m good.” People will look back at us and wonder what the hell was wrong with us.
The takeaway is that you can take it slow. Creating online, doing your own thing, and dabbling here and there might dramatically expand your possibilities in the future.
Here is something I strongly believe: These are the kinds of people that are not only going to thrive on unconventional paths but in the broader working ecosystem. The world of work is increasingly being driven by creativity, art, and storytelling.
Each year I’ve been self-employed I have underestimated the opportunities in front of me and it seems that there is still a massive disconnect between the quality of opportunities and the real and perceived “tax” that one needs to pay if they want to create online or leave the default path.
I’m indifferent to whether you do something great or not. All I know is that tapping into your creative potential is deeply powerful and with all the resources in the world at our disposal, we might as well see what we can become.
One of the biggest challenges people have when embarking on an unconventional path is disconnecting from extrinsic markers of success and listening to internal motivational cues. On the default path, you can spend an entire career playing other people’s games. At first, people on a pathless path try to fill the lack of extrinsic goals with new ones... See more
No matter what path we are on we feel the pressure to always be doing and orienting ourselves in ways that might help us in our careers. It convinces us we need to ship, produce, have an impact, and make money, or we are a failure.
I believe the best way to describe this shift is as a shift from legible ambition to illegible ambition. The reason so many people cling to default metrics of success is that other people understand them. Legible ambition is a story that your parents can tell their friends. We fear that not having such legible ambition means we will be cast out of ... See more
I want people to realize that there is an unprecedented opportunity available to people right now. If you are willing to pay some economic and status costs in the short term you can take advantage of this temporary arbitrage opportunity. Worst case, you can return to your job with a little more energy. Best case? You might stumble upon a way of wor... See more