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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Paul Millerd
Read between
February 19 - March 5, 2023
Study hard, get good grades, get a good job. Then put your head down and keep going, indefinitely. This is what I call the “default path.”
I felt like I had more than I could ever need. Yet I opted into an identity that didn’t accept such complacency. Everyone around me was always moving forward towards the next achievement.
We like to think that once we “make it” we can finally be ourselves, but based on who the companies selected, it was clear that the longer people stay at a company, the higher odds that they would become what the company wanted. I realized I didn’t want that to happen to me.
was the idea of a “pathless path,”
To Whyte, a pathless path is a paradox: “we cannot even see it is there, and we do not recognize it.”1 To me, the pathless path was a mantra to reassure myself I would be okay.
The pathless path is an alternative to the default path. It is an embrace of uncertainty and discomfort. It’s a call to adventure in a world that tells us to conform. For me, it’s also a gentle reminder to laugh when things feel out of control and trusting that an uncertain future is not a problem to be solved.
This book does not argue for or against any singular way of living, but it contests the idea that the default path is the only way. By default path, I mean a series of decisions and accomplishments needed to be seen as a successful adult.
Their research found remarkable consistency across countries with regard to the events that people expect to occur in their lives. Most of these moments occur before the age of 35: graduating from school, getting a job, falling in love, and getting married.
This means that for many people, expectations of life are centered around a small number of positive events that occur while we are young. Much of the rest of our lives remains unscripted and when people face inevitable setbacks, they are left without instructions on how to think or feel.
Driving back from the café, I was angry at myself. Why had I been so worried about work, something that was clearly not important?
That experience sent me down the “way of loss,” opening me up to the questions I had ignored by orienting my life around my work. What was I living for? What did I really want? How did I want to look back on my life when it was my time to go?
In those months, everything was filled with meaning. Relationships felt more important. Books, songs, and movies made me cry, and I became more curious about everything.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t on a permanent vacation. I spent all my savings and took $70,000 in debt with an intention to continue on my path.
cracks. I had loosened my attachment to “Paul as a successful person,” but was still firmly located in that successful world.
Jordan’s compassion gave me the courage to abandon my attachment to seeing myself as a “broken” sick person waiting to restart my life and realize that something new was likely emerging.
Professors Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun have suggested that many people who face crises often experience “post-traumatic growth” and that this manifests as an “appreciation for life in general, more meaningful interpersonal relationships, an increased sense of personal strength, changed priorities, and a richer existential and spiritual life.”17
In Weber’s view, a “traditionalist” view of work is one where people work as much as they need to maintain their current lifestyle, and once that aim is achieved, they stop working.
The difference between working to meet one’s needs versus meeting expectations raises a question. When did this shift occur and why did it not happen universally?
It might surprise you that in Greece, during the time of Aristotle more than 2,000 years ago, work was simply considered a necessary evil.
Contemplating one’s place in the universe was seen as one of the most worthwhile things to do and at minimum, more important than the “money-making life,” which Aristotle described as “something quite contrary to nature…for it is merely useful as a means to something else.”19
Genesis, the first book of the Christian Old Testament, mentions work as God is condemning Adam for eating fruit from the Tree of Life. God tells him that only “through painful toil” will Adam continue to eat fruit and only “by the sweat of your brow will you eat your food until you return to the ground.” Later, in the New Testament, St. Paul warns against idleness more directly: “He who shall not work shall not eat.”
The lesson is clear: work is a duty. However, it was still in a limited sense.
Thomas Aquinas, as he argues “labor is only necessary ‘naturali ratione’ [by natural reason] for the maintenance of individual and community.”21 People should be expected to work, but the reason is to meet the needs of our families and communities.
Max Weber summarizes the shift, saying that the way to honor God, “was not to surpass worldly morality in monastic asceticism, but solely through the fulfillment of the obligations imposed upon the individual by his position in the world. That was his calling.”22
In the 1940s, philosopher Erich Fromm summarized this transformation, saying, “in the Northern European countries, from the 16th century on, man developed an obsessional craving to work which had been lacking in a free man before that period.”
People traded one master, the Catholic Church, for another, their vocation.
These Catholic and Protestant perspectives on work are deeply embedded in the modern default path view of work that spans the globe but has become detached from the time periods and traditions from which they emerged.
The educated, hardworking masses are still doing what they’re told, but they’re no longer getting what they deserve. – Seth Godin
We made a mistake and by that, I mean my generation and my parents’ generation. The mistake we made was thinking that the period from 1946 to 1980 was the norm. No, it was not! It was the anomaly! We had just wiped out the manufacturing capabilities of anyone who could challenge us. So, the idea that you had that job with the gold watch, and you could work there for your entire career and raise a family of four and all of that, that was an anomaly.30
The paths that enabled people to thrive were the result of unique economic and historical circumstances
Factors that support meaningful lives, like economic growth across all sectors, a young population, two‑parent households, generous pensions, and company loyalty were anomalies of the past, as O’Shaughnessy points out.
People who defined their work as a calling saw their work as “inseparable from their life” and worked, “not
The researchers boldly concluded that if people could find work they saw as a calling it would improve their “life, health, and job satisfaction.”32
In the 2010s the expectation that work should be meaningful became a default expectation of college graduates.
My conclusion from this is simple: beyond the headlines of dramatic life changes are almost always longer, slower, and more interesting journeys.
Fifteen years into a successful career in finance, he walked away to find a new path. However, it took him a long time to make that decision. He reflected, “It definitely wasn’t a sudden realization. It’s a little bit like having a pebble in your shoe, where you’re walking and something is off, and it’s mildly uncomfortable.”45
realized that despite his external success, he had become a “passive participant” in his life.
If there are clear boundaries to behavior within a given field of endeavor, then there is also great freedom to adapt and imagine within those lines. These boundaries, however, should always be tested to see if they are actually still real. It takes conscious acts by individuals to test these edges. – David Whyte
My final list included four items: health, relationships, fun & creativity, and career.
Without knowing it, I had embraced a question that would shape my decisions: “How do you design a life that doesn’t put work first?” The answer, my dear reader, is simple. You start underachieving at work.
Instead of being consumed with thoughts about work and my next step, I had time to continue to experiment, and in the space that emerged, a creative energy entered which started to become a central force in my life.
Creativity requires faith. Faith requires that we relinquish control. – Julia Cameron
As I started to test my boundaries, I split into two different versions of myself. One, “Default Path Paul,” focused on continuing my career, looking for the next job. The other, “Pathless Path Paul,’’ was finding his footing and starting to pay attention to the clues that were showing up. Clues that would lead me not to another job, but to another life.
Austin Kleon, a prolific creator and writer, says that “creative work runs on uncertainty; it runs on not knowing what you’re doing.”46 The creative work of finding a new life path is similar.
“only intrinsic motivation lasts”
It took a year and a half for me to admit I did not enjoy my job.
As I sat there, I didn’t know how to want it anymore.
Your life is too short and too valuable to fritter away in work. If you don’t get out now, you may end up like the frog that is placed in a pot of fresh water on the stove. As the temperature is gradually increased, the frog feels restless and uncomfortable, but not uncomfortable enough to jump out. Without being aware that a chance is taking place, he is gradually lulled into unconsciousness. Much the same thing happens when you take a person and put him in a job which he does not like. He gets irritable in his groove. His duties soon become a monotonous routine that slowly dulls his senses.
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why was I so attached to what I thought I was worth?
That’s not what happened. Most were outraged. He realized that “these corporate officials viewed their compensation as the sole barometer of self-worth.” He wasn’t lowering their salaries; he was dealing a blow to the essence of who they thought they were.50
