[Image source: TED]
Takeaways
I highly suggest consuming the full piece here (17 min. watch time)
“…we live in an age when our lives are regularly punctuated by career crises, by moments when what we thought we knew — about our lives, about our careers — comes into contact with a threatening sort of reality.” — Alain de Botton
High expectations: “Never before have expectations been so high about what human beings can achieve with their lifespan. We’re told, from many sources, that anyone can achieve anything. We’ve done away with the caste system, we are now in a system where anyone can rise to any position they please…There’s a real correlation between a society that tells people that they can do anything, and the existence of low self-esteem.” — Alain de Botton
Trade-offs: “You can’t be successful at everything. We hear a lot of talk about work-life balance. Nonsense. You can’t have it all. You can’t. So any vision of success has to admit what it’s losing out on, where the element of loss is. And I think any wise life will accept, as I say, that there is going to be an element where we’re not succeeding.” — Alain de Botton
Main argument: “So what I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas, and make sure that we own them; that we are truly the authors of our own ambitions. Because it’s bad enough not getting what you want, but it’s even worse to have an idea of what it is you want, and find out, at the end of the journey, that it isn’t, in fact, what you wanted all along.” — Alain de Botton
My two cents: There’s a ton of wisdom in this oldie-but-goodie TED talk given by Alain de Botton. If you’d prefer to read the transcript, you can find that: here. It’s fascinating to see how societies change generationally. The advice given to young people is constantly changing. What’s the truth? Is there a truth? I think Alain shares some truths, if not truths, perspectives that I haven’t be taught or thought of before.
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