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Do you have passion?

Economist
7cdb

I think someone posted a video yesterday of a guy at a TED conference who basically said that you cannot have a great career without passion. Well, it got me thinking that I am not particularly passionate about economics. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy thinking about economics. I enjoy doing research - to some extent - and I enjoy the academic environment. I have performed decently and believe I could make an average to slightly above average economist. Nonetheless, I can't say that I am particularly passionate about economics. If I had a billion dollars I would probably not be in this line of work.

It kind of reminds me of that Daniella Pucci - who is totally hot by the way - who quit her job as an MIT professor to become a tango dancer. I feel like I am in that situation but I can't decide whether or not I am willing to take the loss in income and prestige if I don't become a professor. The thought of path dependency is also a bit scary. The academic life gives me some security: I know that if I perform well in my courses and have some good research I will get a decent job whether it be in academia or the private sector. If I were to strike out on my own and pursue my true passion there is a very real chance I could end up 50 years from now having very little money and in a position that is not very well respected by most people.

Just curious if the rest of you deal with similar issues?

10 years ago # QUOTE 17 Volod 8 Vlad !
Economist
d394

i am a connoisseur of fine art. i have posted many links to fine pieces i have encountered lately - the mcnaughton fellow - but emjr losers aren't refined enough to appreciate them.

10 years ago # QUOTE 5 Volod 3 Vlad !
Economist
117d

every ted talk

http://thebrowser.com/videos/time-ted

10 years ago # QUOTE 3 Volod 0 Vlad !
Economist
0770

http://www.econjobrumors.com/topic/are-you-passionate-about-economic-research

10 years ago # QUOTE 1 Volod 0 Vlad !
Economist
c9f1

The real question is: Do you really have something that you are passionate about? If you don't know or don't have the gut to pursuit your dream, then you're destined to live a normal and peaceful life.

10 years ago # QUOTE 5 Volod 1 Vlad !
Economist
7cdb

OP here. I do have something I am particularly passionate about. A career could be made of it, but it would be very tough to do and the standard of living would be lower than anything from economics, unless I was at the highest levels of the profession.

Is it really so bad that I don't have the guts to leave my PhD? The TED talk made it pretty clear that I will be a failure unless I pursue that passion.

10 years ago # QUOTE 1 Volod 1 Vlad !
Economist
0770

Most people's passions are extraordinarily difficult to achieve success in or make a living at. I think by the nature of passion it is the sort of thing that you would do if you didn't have to earn a living.

I always wanted to be a composer, and studied musical theory for a year before giving it up for more practical pursuits. I now wonder, what if?

10 years ago # QUOTE 2 Volod 0 Vlad !
Economist
7cdb

I suppose the question comes down to that, what if? Is it really feasible for us to pursue that, what if? Do you feel you made the right choice 7702?

10 years ago # QUOTE 0 Volod 0 Vlad !
Economist
e2f6

OP good, I can't understand why somebody nogooded him; even if you aren't personally in this situation, his post is the exposure of the plain truth for many people in this profession.
And there's nothing wrong about it. For some people the academic life can be a sort of monastic choice for which you devote nearly every your waking minutes and thoughts to your discipline, for others it can be just a profession. While it's almost impossible to take this work as a mere 9-5 work, something in between is absolutely reasonable.
Someone lives in poverty to pursue his passion. But would you do this work 70 hrs/week for the equivalent of the legal minumum wage of someone who is working 35 hrs/week? No? So is yours really such a strong passion?
I was interested in economics, and still am I even after understanding that 90% of econ research is utterly bullshit. I would have mand a work of it (and a work in which I was really interested, not just for the paycheck) but I wasn't willing to trade having a life for it. And when I realized that, in my particular case and in terms of time, it wasn't possible, I basically left academia.

10 years ago # QUOTE 15 Volod 1 Vlad !
Economist
6325

2f68 very good

10 years ago # QUOTE 3 Volod 0 Vlad !
Economist
c9f1

7702: Successful hedge fund managers do have their own passion, and they can certainly make a living out of it :)

cdbe: There's only one way to find out if you make the right choice.

OP: Good luck! Picture you spending the rest of your life wondering what else you could have done. If it's not too unbearable then stay in school!

10 years ago # QUOTE 2 Volod 0 Vlad !
Economist
84e9

OP: Your post could have been written by me! I never had the passion for economics - it's a job that pays the bills. I still enjoy it all; chatting with the colleagues, teaching and doing research that I'm interested in. But I'm still here as I can't think of an alternative line of work that I'd be passionate about.

10 years ago # QUOTE 1 Volod 0 Vlad !
Economist
0770

7702 here.

From an ideological standpoint, I wish I never even considered grad school in Econ, and instead of spending 4 years checking F.O.C and running stata codes, actually pursued composing. I probably would have failed, as many others do, but there is something fundamentally discordant in me in wondering what I could have been. I do not like the lifestyle that is bred in academia. Essentially, you are a function of your research and, unless you are highly efficient, will spend the majority of your waking hours devoted to your work, even when you try to spend time with your family. I'm sure everyone in academia has felt the strange pangs of guilt when you are thinking about taking a vacation or "shutting things off". The environment selects against it.

On the plus side we are all very talented and could probably succeed at a number of things, so all hope is not lost. I think its important to remember that we actually have it quite good. The bulk of us earn salaries comparable to that of primary care professionals and lawyers after going through med school and suffering terrible amounts of debt (I'm mostly referring to pediatricians and family practice not sexier medical specialties). On top that, we are in theory doing something that we "enjoy" more than our present alternatives, or we would not do it.

Re 9f1e: I agree that hedge fund managers might love their jobs and have passion for it, but for every 1 hedge fund manager there are probably 1000 failed analysts who tried to get the gig.

10 years ago # QUOTE 6 Volod 0 Vlad !
Economist
c497

I have la pasion.

10 years ago # QUOTE 0 Volod 0 Vlad !
Economist
da64

I know a few economists who should have been chefs. But I think this life is probably better overall.

10 years ago # QUOTE 3 Volod 0 Vlad !
Economist
c91d

7702 here.
From an ideological standpoint, I wish I never even considered grad school in Econ, and instead of spending 4 years checking F.O.C and running stata codes, actually pursued composing. I probably would have failed, as many others do, but there is something fundamentally discordant in me in wondering what I could have been. I do not like the lifestyle that is bred in academia. Essentially, you are a function of your research and, unless you are highly efficient, will spend the majority of your waking hours devoted to your work, even when you try to spend time with your family. I'm sure everyone in academia has felt the strange pangs of guilt when you are thinking about taking a vacation or "shutting things off". The environment selects against it.

Dude, that was an awesome. You can feel the sincerity comes from your guts - if that makes sense. I am glad to hear that others go through the same lanes of doubt.

I am also glad someone is a testimony of how mytical is the the idea that an academic job, when taken seriously, is less stressfull than industry jobs and with more friendly working hours.

It is not! It is a f*** 24-7 job as you never shut off the "research mode" even when sleepping or playing with your kids. That works out well for a number of people, especially the more introvert and anti-social ones; but lets stop pretending that academic jobs give you some superior form of life.

In fact I am increasingly suspicious that, for people who are trained to make optimal choices, most of us have failed miserably at making the best employment of our intelectual resources. We would probably succeed at virtually anything we devoted to at least half the energy we devoted to grad school. And yet, we chose a career that has probably one of the worst work-life balances.

10 years ago # QUOTE 2 Volod 0 Vlad !
Economist
84e9

91d0: I agree that in our job we never "shut off the research mode" and I used to think of it as a negative. Now I've come to the realization that I am just a naturally inquisitive person and even if I wasn't doing research for a living, I'd be "researching things" i.e. trying to understand everything around us. Some people really struggle "turning their brains off" and relaxing - meditation works for some, not me, but I get the escape from good movies, exercise etc.

Regarding work-life balance, it's what you make of it. I have personally moved way down to achieve the balance, but it whether you are willing to sacrifice the prestige or whatever keeps you where you are, is something for you to figure out.

OP and 7702: You are lucky to have a passion! Follow it if you think it makes you happier. Low income is fine if your expenses are low (duh right) so just make sure you make a financially rational choice. I have many artist friends who are happy on sporadic income but they don't have the material needs that I have. One thing to note though is that sometimes when a passion becomes a job it ceases to be a passion or so I've been told.

10 years ago # QUOTE 5 Volod 0 Vlad !
Economist
28a5

delete this racist thread

10 years ago # QUOTE 0 Volod 0 Vlad !
Economist
2d7f

I feel really lucky in light of reading this. I read Rilkie's "Letters to a Young Poet" in college where Rilkie tells the young poet something to this effect: "if they took away your pen and paper and you could never write again, and you would do anything other than commit suicide, then you must quit aspiring to become a poet now and find that thing for which that is true stat". The young poet eventually become some kind of military officer.

When I read that, at the time, I had another idea of my future in mind, and I knew from experience that I could live without it, even though I was at that stage competent enough to look at myself in the mirror. I decided, though, Rilke was right enough for me even I didn't think I could ever bear sharing that advice with someone else as it seemed too idealistic. (Rilke was I think probably in his early 20s when he wrote it, and already Germany's greatest poet, so maybe he was a little full of it).

In time, I randomly found economics. It was pretty random too. I'd already graduated, and I just happened upon it at my old job, which had very little to do with economics. I found some old working papers online, and got hooked. I felt like I had found something that was all consuming in terms of how it made me feel. I realized I had to get a doctorate in economics to do the stuff the people in these papers were doing, so I did it. It was pure hell. I graduated, got a job, and am doing exactly the kind of work I got excited about in the first place. I figure I'm an outlier in that sense -- when I think about what if I had wanted to be an actor or an athlete, or if I'd wanted to be an academic in just about any other considerably more competitive discipline than economics, I feel lucky to have stumbled on economics where I managed to be good enough to satisfy my heart's desires.

I remember in grad school having similar conversations with a colleague as we're having here. My colleague felt like economics research was BS, or that there was no tangible impact on anything else. And therefore, he thought, economics was shit. I always would geek out when he said that, and just point out that it's only shit if his preferences are such that he values that stuff. But isn't enough to do the research if you personally find it deeply rewarding? That's where I am, I guess. I don't really care if my work gets cited, or if policymakers read it, or if I extend the literature to be honest. I write the papers I want to read, and answer the questions that I want answered. Where else could I ever do something like that except in academia as an economist? Even better, I get paid to talk to people about economics. It's surreal and feels like a huge scam that I'm getting paid a liveable wage to do something I almost feel like I'd do for free if I could.

But that's just me I think. I know people for whom their job really isn't the existential end-all-be-all, and they are happy. And they're happy because they're fundamentally designed different from me. That's not bad. Everybody is different. The hard part of life is figuring out your own preferences -- even though we take preferences as given in our classes, I find that preferences are things I'm spending all of my life just trying to understand. What do I care about? What do I want to spend my life doing? Someone else, it's just a job that provides them income that they use to purchase the things they do value. For me, being an economist and writing paper is itself practically like income.

I don't think I could do it otherwise. It's very challenging work otherwise. The rejections from editors and referees, the challenges of navigating a departmental culture, the sometimes back-breaking work you have to do for students. There's a lot of stress with it. Bu...See full post

10 years ago # QUOTE 13 Volod 1 Vlad !
Economist
c91d

Nice. Very nice. But as an economist I can't help but think that there is something disturbing and wrong about the fact that you don't really care if your work gets cited, or if policymakers read it, or if you extend the literature.

I guess you are right. This sounds like a scam.

10 years ago # QUOTE 0 Volod 0 Vlad !

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