Thinking about working
Feb 3, 2006I’m lucky, I like what I do for a living. Not everything I have to do, not every day, not everyone I have to deal with, but most days I like it. I like programming, I like integrating systems, I like solving problems. I’m often frustrated but rarely bored and I like that too.
I was talking with a coworker over an office lottery pool and said, truthfully, that if I ever won big I wouldn’t quit, I’d buy stuff I don’t need and take longer vacations. If they let me stay, I would and if they didn’t, I’d find somewhere else to do pretty much the same things I do now. This was surprising to them.
Another time I was having a beer after work with colleagues and we were talking about career changes and eventual retirement. When they retire- and the sooner, the better, so they can enjoy it- they’ll leave work and never look back. I said if I do leave I.T., I’ll go take those undergrad chem and bio courses with lab I skirted when I didn’t know any better and then I’d see if I could get into a medical school or physician’s assistant program so I could look into doing emergency room and trauma. They stared at me like I had three heads.
See what Paul Graham writes in [How to do what you love](http://paulgraham.com/love.html).