Career Advice

I’m often an unreasonable person. I’m prone to ranting, to coming generally unhinged about what are actually totally reasonable things. One of those things which I am routinely unreasonable about is what other people read, and what some authors choose to write. I should not care. I should not care the tiniest bit what other people want to read. Spoiler: I do care. Too much. Goodreads, you’re a problem in my life.

It’s been a bit hard for me to articulate, to nail down why some books, some reading lists make me so unreasonably angry. Fortunately, my brother managed to crack the case for me a couple of days ago:

He was reading a book, which he termed a “management book”. It does seem to be a management book. Makes sense, management is hard. He was sharing something from it with me because it happened to reference Albert Camus, an author who I routinely bring up – and this is when it hit me:

The best way to get people think critically about life is to disguise thoughts as career advice.

Career advice is safe: It’s practically useful, so the professional is praised for spending time and effort on it. The career itself is not questioned – the idea of work itself, the nature and shape of existence – these are frivolities to be ignored for the driven professional. What is important is that you maximize time productivity, to limit mistakes, to achieve your dreams.

I mean, your career dreams.