Your Sorting Hat: On choosing your startup, your desires and your fears
Career Tuesday
Careers, Life and Questions (Nov 02, 2021)
Wish you a Happy Career Tuesday! And a cracker of a year ahead in your career. Happy Diwali!
3 Career Ideas
I.
"Muscles grow stronger at the gym when pushed to the limit.
Likewise your skills at work. Embrace the intense periods."
II.
"First - block time for your own tasks that are critical.
Only then share your calendar for others to block."
III.
"How to choose a startup to work at?
You offer your time. Consider what you will take away. If it succeeds? If it fails?"
2 Life Quotes from Books
I.
Luke Burgis, entrepreneur and economist, explores how other people's choices shape our desires, in his book - Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire -
"An unbelieved truth is often more dangerous than a lie. The lie in this case is the idea that I want things entirely on my own, uninfluenced by others, that I’m the sovereign king of deciding what is wantable and what is not. The truth is that my desires are derivative, mediated by others, and that I’m part of an ecology of desire that is bigger than I can fully understand. By embracing the lie of my independent desires, I deceive only myself. But by rejecting the truth, I deny the consequences that my desires have for other people and theirs for me."
Source: Book: Wanting by Luke Burgis
II.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist, offers a way to overcome conflict in his book - Fear :
"If we are sincere in wanting to learn the truth, and if we know how to use gentle speech and deep listening, we are much more likely to be able to hear others’ honest perceptions and feelings. In that process, we may discover that they too have wrong perceptions. After listening to them fully, we have an opportunity to help them correct their wrong perceptions. If we approach our hurts that way, we have the chance to turn our fear and anger into opportunities for deeper, more honest relationships."
Source: Book: Fear by Thich Nhat Hanh
1 Question
What is your biggest fear? If that vanished, what would you do differently?
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Until next week,
Devashish Chakravarty
Author of YourSortingHat
Columnist for Careers at The Economic Times