激情跟着我们,工作转化为激情

有一个明确的激情跟着我们吗？ 让你的工作转化为激情 ! CAL NEWPORT

在 2004 年的春天，在大学毕业那年，我对自己的未来的职业生涯面临着一个艰难的决定。 我有一个工作机会，微软和麻省理工学院的计算机科学博士课程的录取通知书。 我也有我的第一个非小说类的书 -- 选择成为全职作家的手稿，。 这是三个显着不同的职业道路，我不得不选择哪一个适合我。
对于许多我的同龄人，这个决定已经充满了焦虑。 长大后，我们被辅导员告知，职业建议书，新闻媒体和其他 “ 跟着我们的热情。 ” 这个建议假设我们每个人都有一个预先存在的激情等待我们去发现。 “ 的思想，如果我们发现这个呼召，并匹配到我们的生活的勇气，我们最终会幸福的。 如果我们缺乏这种勇气，我们会无聊和未完成的 - 或者，更糟糕的是，在法律学校。
一小群人，这个建议是有道理的，因为他们有一个明确的激情。 也许他们一直想成为医生，作家，音乐家等，并且无法想象任何东西。
但这一理念提出了很大的压力，我们其余的人 - 和需要长期的审议。 如果我们不小心，它告诉我们，我们最终可能会错过我们的 “ 天职 ” 。 即使我们做出选择，我们仍然没有不受其影响。 每次我们的工作变得困难，我们都推向生存危机，对许多人来说是一个令人讨厌无法回答的问题集中在： “ 这是我真正的意思是什么做的？ ” 这个常数无疑会产生焦虑和慢性跳槽 。
在大学毕业那年，我认为我的选择，我知道的所有关于这个邪教组织的激情和要求。 但我选择忽略它。 其他职业理念驱使我是基于这个简单的前提：特质，引导人们热爱自己的工作是通用的，有一点做的工作的细节。 这些特征包括一个自主意识和你的感觉，你做什么，有一个在世界上的影响。 数十年的研究工作场所的动力支持这一行动。 （丹尼尔 · 平克的著作 “ 驱动器 ” 提供了一个很好的总结本文献）。
这些特点可以发现大量的就业机会，但他们必须赢得。 宝贵的技能是很难的，需要时间。 在新岗位上的人，是不正确的问题， “ 这是什么工作提供给我的吗？ ” 但是，相反， “ 什么我提供这份工作吗？ ”
回到我的故事，只有很少考虑后，我决定去麻省理工学院 到我的一种职业理念，我相信，我的职业生涯中的所有三个有可能转化为激情的来源，而这种自信释放我的担心做出了错误的选择。 我最终选择麻省理工学院，主要是因为有轻微的东海岸的偏好，但我会一直前往西雅图微软总部附近同样内容。 或者提前从我的第一本书，我可以放低了姿态，写在一个安静的小镇。
在我的最初几年，作为 ​​ 一名研究生，我当然不享有不可动摇的感觉，我找到了我真正的使命。 博士生培养的开始可以是粗糙的。 你还没有足够熟练作出贡献的研究文献，它可以是令人沮丧的。 在麻省理工学院（ MIT ）这样的地方，你周围的光彩，它可以使你的问题是否属于。
如果我订阅的 “ 按照我们的激情 ” 正统，我可能会留在最初的几年，担心，我并没有感受到爱我的工作每天。 但我知道，我的成就感会随着时间的推移，我在我的工作变得更好。 所以我努力工作，我的能力的增长，所以没有。
今天，我在乔治城大学（ Georgetown University ）的计算机科学教授，我热爱我的工作。 我可以借鉴我的经验是最重要的一课，这无关搞清楚在早期激情的年龄，我的意思是教授。 我选择这个特定的路径没有什么特别的。 重要的是，一旦我做了我的选择，我做了什么。
其他年轻人不断地想知道如果职业栅栏的另一边草是绿的，我提供了这样的建议：是不是你遵循的激情。 这件事情，会跟着你，因为你把在艰苦的工作，成为宝贵的世界。

September 29, 2012. .

NYTimes.com

Follow a Career Passion? Let It Follow You By CAL NEWPORT

IN the spring of 2004, during my senior year of college, I faced a hard decision about my future career. I had a job offer from Microsoft and an acceptance letter from the computer science doctoral program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I had also just handed in the manuscript for my first nonfiction book, which opened the option of becoming a full-time writer. These are three strikingly different career paths, and I had to choose which one was right for me.

For many of my peers, this decision would have been fraught with anxiety. Growing up, we were told by guidance counselors, career advice books, the news media and others to “ follow our passion .” This advice assumes that we all have a pre-existing passion waiting to be discovered. If we have the courage to discover this calling and to match it to our livelihood, the thinking goes, we’ll end up happy. If we lack this courage, we’ll end up bored and unfulfilled — or, worse, in law school.

To a small group of people, this advice makes sense, because they have a clear passion. Maybe they’ve always wanted to be doctors, writers, musicians and so on, and can’t imagine being anything else.

But this philosophy puts a lot of pressure on the rest of us — and demands long deliberation. If we’re not careful, it tells us, we may end up missing our true calling. And even after we make a choice, we’re still not free from its effects. Every time our work becomes hard, we are pushed toward an existential crisis, centered on what for many is an obnoxiously unanswerable question: “Is this what I’m really meant to be doing?” This constant doubt generates anxiety and chronic job-hopping.

As I considered my options during my senior year of college, I knew all about this Cult of Passion and its demands . But I chose to ignore it. The alternative career philosophy that drove me is based on this simple premise: The traits that lead people to love their work are general and have little to do with a job’s specifics. These traits include a (1) sense of autonomy and (2) the feeling that you’re good at what you do and (3) are having an impact on the world. Decades of research on workplace motivation back this up. (Daniel Pink’s book “Drive” offers a nice summary of this literature.)

These traits can be found in many jobs, but they have to be earned . Building valuable skills is hard and takes time. For someone in a new position, the right question is not, “What is this job offering me?” but, instead, “What am I offering this job?”

RETURNING to my story, I decided after only minimal deliberation to go to M.I.T. True to my alternative career philosophy , I was confident that all three of my career options could be transformed into a source of passion , and this confidence freed me from worry about making a wrong choice. I ended up choosing M.I.T., mainly because of a slight preference for the East Coast, but I would have been equally content heading out to Microsoft’s headquarters near Seattle. Or, with the advance from my first book, I could have hunkered down in a quiet town to write.

During my initial years as a graduate student, I certainly didn’t enjoy an unshakable sense that I had found my true calling. The beginning of doctoral training can be rough. You’re not yet skilled enough to make contributions to the research literature, which can be frustrating. And at a place like M.I.T., you’re surrounded by brilliance, which can make you question whether you belong.

Had I subscribed to the “follow our passion” orthodoxy, I probably would have left during those first years , worried that I didn’t feel love for my work every day. But I knew that my sense of fulfillment would grow over time , as I became better at my job. So I worked hard, and, as my competence grew, so did my engagement.

Today, I’m a computer science professor at Georgetown University, and I love my job. The most important lesson I can draw from my experience is that this love has nothing to do with figuring out at an early age that I was meant to be a professor . There’s nothing special about my choosing this particular path. What mattered is what I did once I made my choice.

To other young people who constantly wonder if the grass might be greener on the other side of the occupational fence, I offer this advice: Passion is not something you follow. It’s something that will follow you as you put in the hard work to become valuable to the world.

Cal Newport is the author of “So Good They Can’t Ignore You.”

2012 年 9 月 29 日。 。
NYTimes.com