The best career advice you’ll never hear in a graduation speech
By William MacAskill
“Follow your passion” is the stupidest career advice I’ve ever heard. Why? Because my passion in life is for singing bad karaoke. My friend Dodgy Dave’s passion is for dealing crack cocaine. Some of my friends have many passions. Most of my friends have none.
“Do what you’re good at” is better, but still stupid. It gets things the wrong way around. For almost all activities, being “good at” something is the result of thousands of hours of practice and learning (pdf). In choosing a career, you’re almost always making the decision about what to become good at, not the other way around.
How, then, should you find a job you’ll love?
Here’s my slogan: ”Do something valuable.”
Let the problems in the world dictate what you do, rather than forcing a preconceived checklist labeled “success,” to be your motivation. Do something that genuinely helps others and makes the world a better place in a major way. That’s the way to have a happy, fulfilled life.
When I tell people this, half think it’s crazy and half think it’s trivial. I think it’s neither. So here’s a three-part explanation.
First, here’s the intuition. Think about yourself at 85, sitting on your rocking chair, looking back on your life. You, Version 1, think: “I made a ton of cash, own three beach houses and a yacht. But what was the point of it all?” Compare with You, Version 2: “I made a lot of money. I also dewormed the entire childhood population of Burundi. But what was the point of it all?” We find it pretty easy to imagine You, Version 1; but the thought of You, Version 2 being dissatisfied is jarring. If you want lasting job satisfaction, you should do something you find meaningful. And the best way to do something you find meaningful is to do something that actually is meaningful.
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