So apparently I'm going to be a dad, which led me to think about the meaning of life and that I should probably write my thoughts down so that I can see how my world view changes as I become a parent. Lily is 19 weeks along now and we find out next week whether or not we're going to have a boy or a girl. Either way we're extremely excited. I'm hoping for a boy because I'm going to have a much easier time dealing with him when he gets to high school. I imagine the father/son talk about health going something along the lines of "Here's a pack of condoms, if you are going to have sex, make sure you use them, but just be aware that nothing in life is guaranteed. Your mom and I followed everything to the letter, yet you still came 2 years early, defying all odds." Now if we have a girl, the talk would go much more along the lines of "Men and boys are pigs, I should know. Especially when they're in high school/college. They'll say or do anything to get what they want. Just look at our dog Gum Gum, he'll sell us all out for a cookie. So just be careful!" I know this is a double standard, but boys and girls are different, and will probably remain so for all time. Unless our transgender technology becomes significantly better and you can pick your gender on a daily basis like your clothes.
Now onto thoughts about the meaning of life. On Thursday, I ended up working for almost 24 hours due to issues stemming from human error. That got me thinking about work and how it affects life. I consider myself one of the lucky ones in that what I do for my job is my passion. I love computers and all things computer related, so while during my 24 hour work shift I was extremely stressed, in the back of my head I was thinking, wow what I'm doing is awesome! At the end of it all as the sun was rising and my other fellow coworkers started showing up for work, I was rather satisfied and pleased with what we had just accomplished in the past several hours. The only downside was that I had missed a dinner and a night with Lily (and as long as it doesn't happen too often I guess that's okay), but I did get the following day off to make it up to her.
I've heard a lot of career advice in the past, basically boiling down to do what you're good at for your job that make lots of money and keep what you enjoy as a hobby. I tend to disagree with that now because if you are passionate about something, you'll tend to be good at it. I believe that I'm good at my job because I love it. For example, I read up on and do related things in my spare time, building up my skills which then subsequently translate into better work performance.
Work is something that you will probably spend most of your life doing, day in and day out, almost every day of every week for several decades. Hence, you should pick something that you really really enjoy so that you spend the majority of your life doing something that makes you happy. I find it sad that most people don't share this opinion, and work to them is just a means to an end. For me, money is a means to an end, not work. Work is something that is basically your life since you spend so much time doing it, hence it should be something that you love. Recently I talked with a couple and they said that they aren't passionate about their work and that they don't even know what they're passionate about. They work because it makes a lot of money. The guy is in the same field as me, yet is about as different from me as you can get. For example he knows very little beyond what is absolutely required for his job, and doesn't take the initiative or even want to learn more. From what I can see, what he loves is teaching and interacting with others. Its sad that he doesn't try to switch his career in this direction, as his wife makes more than enough for him to do so. And if that's not what he loves then he should take some time off to figure out what he is passionate about, otherwise he'll just be wasting some of the best years of his life.
