“It occurred to me that there were two sets of virtues, the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. The résumé virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral — whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful.”
—David Brooks
Earlier this week I chatted with an old friend about my dissertation. I mentioned that I’m having trouble isolating variables, staying interested, and writing the countless pages required of me. But her advice and guidance helped keep me on track, motivated, and psyched.
At some point during the conversation she asked me about my plan. More specifically, what was my plan with Frugaling. I pondered that question and frankly didn’t understand what she meant at first. “My plan?” I inquired. She responded, “Yeah, your plan. You’ve been working on Frugaling for a long time now. Do you ever think it’ll influence or turn into a career?”
I couldn’t help but laugh aloud. Frugaling has never felt like a primary goal or endpoint. Rather, working on this site has been a break from the normal routine — an opportunity to write freely and talk about personal finance in a forum that didn’t exist for me.
Interestingly, I’ve always lived this way: pursuing one avenue while holding countless activities in the background. In high school, I gambled and watched the stock market in every off block or break. I played at lunch with friends and raced home to sign online for hours of entertainment. Poker and stocks superseded high school. As a consequence, my grades suffered and relationships were strained. Nobody liked the person I had become, including me. The lessons of high school paled in comparison to the power of isolation, overwhelming greed, and selfishness. I learned early on that I never wanted to go back to that place.
Despite the lessons, it was the start of a long pattern of side work/play. In college, I was a resident assistant, op-ed columnist for the school newspaper, research assistant, instructor, and served on various committees for suicide prevention and community service. By the end of my tenure I raised over $30,000 for suicide prevention. Here, I learned the importance of selflessness, friendship, and love. None of which were learned in the classroom.
I’ve been in graduate school for… Well, I’m working on my fifth year now because I spent a year at my alma mater in another Ph.D. program. Then, I transferred to my current one for counseling psychology. But in my one year, I became more immersed in the world of suicide prevention via board memberships and invited talks.
My passion for mental health and community engagement grew, but it stood in conflict with academic demands. When I left the program and moved to another, the professors called me it out and basically said, “You’re a great person to have in the classroom, but you’re distracted and your grades have suffered. There are times in life where you must cut back on certain activities to excel in others.”
That was the first time in my life where I wholeheartedly disagreed with feedback about how I conducted myself. My “distractions” were epic side projects, which got me through graduate school, gave me diverse experiences, and exposed me to entire world of learning that occurs out there — in the world.
See, I can’t help but think that these mentalities are something of an “old guard.” In generations of yore, people would become educated, train for a particular career, and then work until they either dropped dead or retired. They did that one thing — over and over again. If all went well, you retired with a hefty pension and retirement package. You could drift off into blissful security, knowing you’d worked hard and earned the riches to live comfortably.
This mentality of education, training, and career has shifted though. People change jobs more than ever — laterally, vertically, and entirely. Now, a job is a temporary weigh station versus a home away from home. Employers tend to treat employees as expendable moneymakers — easily replaced with another head. And the incentives for staying with one company have largely evaporated. Even when pensions are offered, they’re sometimes cut or stopped altogether.
Frankly, I have an utter insecurity for pigeonholing myself to one esoteric career path and never looking back, sideways, or ahead. It’s utterly frightening to imagine doing one thing for the rest of my life, and I’m not sure that any one employer will empower me to do so.
I’ve been in school for about 21 years. The majority has been spent “distracted” and preoccupied with other loves, passions, and motivations. And I can’t help but think about Neil deGrasse Tyson’s belief that discoveries don’t occur in classrooms — they happen in minds, labs, and connections outside. Heck, Einstein didn’t have his eureka moments in a classroom. But largely, most seem caught up in the rat race of education and prestige.
As I reflect on the future of Frugaling, it’s easy to see how it fits into my life. It will likely never be my number one “career,” but there’ll always be a place for this wonderful distraction in my life. These adventures in time and effort have never failed me. In breaking away from the shackles of needing A’s in all my courses or feeling guilty for not working harder, I’m comforted by the fact that work comes in many forms.
Today we live in a world of great change and diversity, to assume or predict what’s necessary for tomorrow would be foolish. Instead, I embrace the unknown by mixing up my life and embracing my wacky, weird, and awesome interests.
How do you approach your career in the 21st century?
What careers are you training for?
Do you ever work outside work or “distract” yourself? How so or why not?
Well before I start, this will be a somewhat long comment since you asked such great questions.
I approach my career as an ever changing place to learn new skills, improve and move on to the next project or job at another company to learn more. Ever since I was young I never was satisfied with just learning in the classroom, but trying things outside of it. Exploring the world. Coming up with crazy ideas and learning if some are even possible. I did not exactly build a mars space station, but I drew one and read about Mars. Today there is absolutely no incentive to stay at one company for my whole life. I wish there was because it would make things simple, but simple can also be boring. As I said I have switched jobs 3 times and am in my mid-twentys. I went from working for myself, to doing research on Real Estate, Natural Gas, and Oil deals, to fighting fraud and responding to chargebacks. Each job had a set of skills and I learned what I like and do not like. Each move was methodical and to some may seem random, but to me I am gaining the skills I need to reach my end goal.
Working on things outside of school or work we are very similar. I find them calming, a place to escape and implement or try ideas that my job will not let me. In high school, I traded the FX markets, the stock markets, played online poker, built computers and sold them on ebay and to local neighbors and businesses, played video games like RuneScape and World of Warcraft and sold the gold I made to other websites for them to resell. On top of those projects i played sports and belonged to clubs. I did those as fun and school felt like the job. I learned more on those side projects than I ever did in school. I became a leader from leading a sports team and supervising theater projects.
During college, I continued to trade the stock market, I also created multiple websites in different realms from affiliate marketing, blogging, youtube channels. My junior year I built a 3D Printing company and then coded all the front and back-end of the website with my roommate who was an electrical engineer. I belong to clubs and organiations and were the leaders of those. Again all of the projects and activities were fun for me while I was taking information I learned in classes, and did further learning or implementing assignments from finance classes into real-life excel models.
Currently, I write my blog, run a youtube channel, still trade the stock market, run a mobile detailing car wash business for high-end cars, and go to my job which I talked about above. I am still inquisitive and have been learning SQL and R coding languages and working on tiny projects to learn through more trial and error. I also have been studying about a software called Tableau and working on how to bring an ROI of the software to the head of my department to better streamline dashboards we need.
I have so many friends, family, professors, and teachers, tell me that I have too much on my plate. And maybe I do but I am young and love learning. Nighttime is my time to shine, to take off and to flourish. I would rather be doing all of these projects than going back and getting an MBA or studying for a certification like the CFA or CPA.
I didn’t realize that you were getting a psych doctorate! I’m on internship this year and read this post as a break from dissertating… Nice to come across someone with similar interests; suicide prevention and finance aren’t the best conversation starters at parties;)
Oh man Sam, you’ve got me thinking deeply on a Friday night. From my perspective, I think it’s fantastic that instead of just school you have been “distracted” in other aspects of life. I dig the well-rounded approach because I feel when you focus on multiple aspects of career, life, school, health, relationships, finances, etc. you’re able to contribute so much in a positive way in many avenues of life. The way I wanted to approach my career(s) started in high school & continued through college. I could not just select one major, one path, it felt as if everyone was encouraged to stay on one-track. I’ve always been curious, and wanted to try everything. I chose to be a Speech Communication major – but that didn’t stop me from taking on internships with the athletic department & college of business, joining a sorority, becoming an active member of the P.R. Club, and putting my experience to the test at different university held events. I may not have become an expert at one thing, but I wanted to take on everything and at least feel somewhat great at it. By taking on different experiences & opportunities, I now can contribute in many ways to various different employers. I think people becoming versatile allows them to train for any type of career. I most definitely work outside of work to distract myself, because sometimes I feel a void. When I was in college, I felt like I was consistently surrounded by passion, questions, conversation. I feel as if a lot of workplaces somewhat stifle these thought processes and I find myself turning to other things outside that allow me to continuously grow (podcasts, library, writing, volunteering, physical health focus). I take it as the more I excel out of work, will also allow me to excel while at work. Very thought provoking post, thank you Sam!
Excellent post Sam! It was fun to read about where you’re at, and how you’re approaching the challenges of a world trying to pigeon-hole you into one path or career. At 56, looking back, I wish I had come to your realizations at a much younger age, to accept and embrace a diverse life and education, rather to spend a great deal of time feeling like I was doing something wrong, in following my own indirect path. I was on a PhD arc at one time, with a plan to become a theatre/communications prof, and to live the life that was modeled for me by my teachers. At some point, I realized that there were too many other interests within me to live such a narrowly focused plan. Although I did not realize the security and financial reward of finding a tenured position with a university, I have had the chance to teach at five universities over the years, with just my Masters degree, sometimes full time, sometimes as an adjunct, and have still interspersed that with working in the visual/creative sides of the retail environment, advising at universities, working in the building trades and renovating five houses by myself. Life is simply too short to not explore and experience multiple work fields, an amazing variety of people that you come across in different places, and the chance to be always be making new discoveries about ourselves.
Good for you making this conscious choice to accept and embrace the variety of life early on. I believe that those who council us to focus and narrow our vision are looking for confirmation that they made the right choice in doing so. Keep following your heart and spirit – they will never lead you astray!
Great post, Sam! And I totally agree with you. As someone who’s always dabbled in various side projects, I’ve found those things to be the important counter balance you’ve mentioned. You’ve found what works for you and that’s a lot more than most people can say!
I don’t think you need to worry about pigeonholing yourself outside of your own mind (which is probably the most dangerous place to pigeonhole yourself), people re-invent themselves all the time and with the fluidity of how the working world is today, it’s easier to succeed at it.
I personally faced this same issue a few years ago when I quit my career to work on my blog (one before Wallet Hacks). I was working in my chosen field (software), one that I had a BS and MS in, and I was doing very well. Quitting to “blog about personal finance” (I have no finance background) was a scary change but the biggest hurdle was pigeonholing myself in my own mind as a software developer.
Frugaling might not be your 1 but you enjoy it, it gives you a release, and that’s a good thing.
Very interesting, thank you!
As a postscript to the great David Brooks quote you include, I recently noted to my boss that the things that make us who we are (the “eulogy virtues”) are things you can’t ask a candidate during a job interview! It’s very hard to choose the right people to hire when you can’t legally touch upon areas that shape and nurture us — where we came from, what we believe, who we love, etc.
Always begin with the end in mind. I always counsel people, whether they are students or entrepreneurs, to have a clear idea of what they expect to get out of any endeavor. I’ve known too many people who went to college simply to go to college; they didn’t even have a major in mind, let alone a career goal after graduation. I’ve known people who wanted to be business owners because the abstract concept of being their own boss was appealing, but they had no specific or realistic idea of what being a business owner would look like.
If you know what outcomes you want, you won’t waste time, money, or other resources wandering aimlessly until you figure it out. All of that needs to be sorted outside the the classroom, and ideally before you ever set foot in a classroom, so that you get the most from your education and end up where you want to be.
The Broke and Beautiful Life changed my life- for the better. A LOT better.
Actors have this mindset, similar to what you were talking about, that doing something outside of your art takes away from your career. Yet they toil away at survival jobs for most of the day. My “survival” job is something I love just as much as acting, I couldn’t be more grateful for having such diverse sources of joy and fulfillment in my life.
Outside of work, we spend lots of hours doing volunteer ministry. This “side” work happens after hours but is actually way more important to us than a day job, though we work hard there. I think it’s great that you pour yourself into more than one pursuit at a time, especially when those projects are meaningful to you.