Your Sorting Hat: On getting lucky, understanding envy and accepting oneself
Careers, Life and Questions (Feb 15, 2022)
Wish you a Happy Career Tuesday!
3 Career Ideas
I.
"You succeed at your job when you solve problems.
Which problems are you handling for your firm?"
II.
"When applying for a job, an internal reference beats a cold application.
Find the right connection for an intro, and the first interview is locked in."
III.
"Whether you like it or not, luck will play a huge role.
Try new skills. Meet new people. Get luckier often."
2 Life Quotes from Books
I.
Richard Thaler, Nobel prize winning behavioural economist, talks about how our lives change based on who we spend time with, in his book- Nudge :
"We are also greatly influenced by consumption norms within the relevant group....
An especially good way to gain weight is to have dinner with other people. On average, those who eat with one other person eat about 35 percent more than they do when they are alone; members of a group of four eat about 75 percent more; those in groups of seven or more eat 96 percent more."
Source: Book: Nudge by Richard Thaler
II.
John Berger, English art critic and Booker Prize Winner, talks about the links between envy/ glamour/ self-assurance in his ground-breaking essay on art criticism - Ways of Seeing :
"Publicity is never a celebration of a pleasure-in-itself. Publicity is always about the future buyer. It offers him an image of himself made glamorous by the product or opportunity it is trying to sell. The image then makes him envious of himself as he might be. Yet what makes this self-which-he-might-be enviable? The envy of others.
Publicity is about social relations, not objects. Its promise is not of pleasure, but of happiness : happiness as judged from the outside by others. The happiness of being envied is glamour. Being envied is a solitary form of reassurance. It depends precisely upon not sharing your experience with those who envy you. You are observed with interest but you do not observe with interest - if you do, you will become less enviable.."
Source: Book: Ways of Seeing by John Berger
1 Question
What part of yourself are you struggling against - health/ family/ income/ emotions? Can you consider acceptance instead of struggle?
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Until next week,
Devashish Chakravarty
Author of YourSortingHat
Columnist for Careers at The Economic Times