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I can relate to the no-goals thing. The point I'd like to make is, that life is meaningless until/unless you give it meaning in some way. Life is what we make of it. If you're so good at making money at poker, you could, for example, put in some extra time doing that in order to either start your own modest charitable fund for a cause of your choice, or to make money to donate to charities. Contributing to college funds for underserved youth, or whatever floats your boat. And as you get involved with your cause-of-choice, you might meet some interesting people.
Just a thought.
Most of us derive some kind of meaning from something or other.
I enjoy hiking, boating, and activities in nature. I like video games. I like spending time with my girlfriend and our German Shepherd. I love traveling. I like dining out, drinking, and talking to interesting people.
A career is just a means to serve those ends for me.
Yup. We are brainwashed from birth to participate in the circus, of course in order to live in civilized society we need a lot of contributors. But yes, sometimes highly intelligent people do choose to pass to maintain their own sanity and sense of self.
Agree about the brainwashing. I must have been born with a contrarian mind, it was around age 14 that I started following the path less traveled and developed a resistance toward authority and the status quo. By 16 my parents didn't want to deal with me anymore, I was too "different", so they surrendered their parental rights and I became a ward of the state until I aged out.
I was in my late 20s, long gone from home, and my parents were still lecturing about what I "should be" doing in life, comparing my carefree existence to the so-called 'success' of others. Yaaaawwwwn. They lost me. Cutting them off completely was one of the better choices I've made in life.
My dad had an old friend who was a member of Mensa, but he just didn't care about building a career. He spent his entire adult life working at low skill, low paying jobs. He drove an old clunker and lived in a crappy apartment with roommates. I just don't get it. Why not at least try to find a way to afford a middle class lifestyle?
I also stayed at a hotel once, and the night clerk looked like he was in his late 50s. We had a long discussion and it was obvious that he was very bright. He had also written a book which I read a few pages of. He was no dummy.
I've had a few similar experiences at restaurants and even fast food places.
Why do some highly intelligent people choose to stay at low paying jobs?
This is a generalization and a stereotype, so please note that there are tons of exceptions.
My observation is that the most intelligent people I know just don't have the patience for the corporate world. They don't care as much about power and prestige and just like to do their own thing and pursue personal interests. Some have a big altruistic bent too. They dance to the beat of a different drum. Many find places in research and academia which do offer some financial rewards.
Some of the most successful people (by worldly standards of money and higher up management jobs - I mean that's great but it's not really my definition of success) seem to be bright people who are really good at making connections with others but not so much the genius types. I've read that who you have lunch with is probably the biggest predictor of who will move up in the corporation. And that's been true with two colleagues of mine who were co-workers in the same position I have who moved up to become company vice presidents. They did both have MBAs too and liked making tough decisions that no one else seemed to like making.
We're talking really different personalities here.
Why do some highly intelligent people choose to stay at low paying jobs?
Perhaps some highly intelligent people looked at what their life would be like in different scenarios and chose the one they wanted to live. It may look like "lack of ambition" to some but it might be heaven to those living it.
Our society is structured in a way that only allows some of it's highly intelligent people full access to fulfilling their ambitions and getting rewarded for their intelligence. We are not a meritocracy except in sports and possibly music.
My dad had an old friend who was a member of Mensa, but he just didn't care about building a career. He spent his entire adult life working at low skill, low paying jobs. He drove an old clunker and lived in a crappy apartment with roommates. I just don't get it. Why not at least try to find a way to afford a middle class lifestyle?
Sometimes the brightest are happiest living in their own minds.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wangchin213
I also stayed at a hotel once, and the night clerk looked like he was in his late 50s. We had a long discussion and it was obvious that he was very bright. He had also written a book which I read a few pages of. He was no dummy.
That's a different kind of ambition. He had the ambition to write a book. It's possible the night manager job allowed a different type of endeavor, like moderate pay for working largely unsupervised so one can write.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wangchin213
I've had a few similar experiences at restaurants and even fast food places.
Why do some highly intelligent people choose to stay at low paying jobs?
One reason: addiction. Alcoholics can work in the service industry and it's way more overlooked or accepted than other industries. They often like the instant cash from tips as well.
Another: It's a side job to bootstrap another venture.
A third: It's a temporary thing for where they're at in life.
Some people just have negative attitudes. I had a friend growing up who was very bright, not MENSA, but bright. But he had this attitude that everyone was always trying to screw him, so he rarely stayed in a job for a year. And he couldn't finish school. He had about 75 hours, but didn't even finish an associates. He just took courses he liked instead of some of the required ones. Last I knew, he was just bouncing around from security job to security job.
There are many possible reasons, a variety in this thread alone, why someone might make such a choice.
I know that I could earn more money than I do. Considerably more. There are a couple of paths I could take to get there, either go back to school for a more advanced degree than what I've got (would about double my salary prospects) or push harder for more cross training and responsibility at work, turn on the shmooze, and join the ranks of management.
I don't want to. I am fine right where I'm at. If I can retire from this company without another promotion, and with only regular annual performance raises (which have been very generous) I will be perfectly happy.
I have a few reasons for this. First of all it's a matter of what I want to do with my time. I find time spent with my husband and other loved ones to be of greater value than money, particularly since my husband is considerably older than I am and our days are numbered in terms of "good years" that he is able to enjoy certain things before age related stuff eventually starts to really slow him down. He's in his mid 60s. I don't want to be consumed with pursuit of an advanced degree and not spend these years having quality time with him.
Secondly, my problem isn't "not enough money." My problem is too many demands on my money from struggling loved ones, particularly my youngest son. And there is not any amount of money that I could have, that would solve his (or their) problems. I have been working on placing some boundaries and decreasing the help that I am offering, and targeting it more carefully so as not to be enabling his bad habits. If I had more money, I would only have more pressure from my sons, my Mom, my other relatives, various friends, to help them when they are on the brink of yet another crisis, and there is always a crisis. Some of it is their own fault, but a lot of it isn't. One of my friends has MS, she works as hard as she can, but... She really should be on disability, but it is damn hard to get. So I ponder this, and how stressful it can be sometimes, and I wonder if people of means cut off everyone who isn't as well to do as they are, and only befriend others who have wealth? If you get to a point where you can't be friends with anyone who might have a problem? That seems rather harsh. I have gone through many hardships without putting my hand out to other people like this myself, and it hurts to feel that there have always been so many more takers, than anyone willing to help if/when I have or might need it.
Having money changes your relationship with the world...if it doesn't, then you won't have it for very long.
Then there is the question of why I won't get into management...my husband and others encouraged me to try, but I do not want leadership roles. This kinda comes back to that feeling that I cannot count on other people. I am intensely uncomfortable about delegating. I don't trust anyone to understand my reasons for why I want anything done the way I do, and if they don't understand my reasons then why would they do anything I ask? I don't want to be the one ultimately responsible for the actions of a team. I want my own projects and to be left alone to do them as I see fit, which is more or less what I've had for the last decade where I work.
Some things are not worth more money. So long as a person feels that they have enough.
I had a good friend who had an ungrad from Stanford and a post grad degree from Yale. We worked together early in our careers, but he left our profession after three years to manage a Kinko's. He was one of the smartest people I've ever met and knowledgeable about so many topics, but preferred to read, listen to music, and work a few hours a week...just enough to pay his rent and food. While I enjoyed his friendship for over 25 years, it irritated me that he was lazy and I felt he wasted his multiple talents working at Kinko's.
He never married or had anything materially, but seemed very content to me. He died too young (cancer) about 5 years ago and lived his life the way he wanted. There were 100+ people at his funeral. He had a successful life.
I met a homeless guy who had a PhD in Mathematics. He was living in a bread van in the parking lot of the beach. He was obviously brilliant from talking with him. Interesting guy. When I met him, I was curious about his van, he had it fixed up pretty cool with a solar cell on the roof for power. He had just built it and was getting ready to head up to the Bay Area for “another gig” as he called work. Before the van, he was a squatter in a repossessed house. He told me he would research all the bankruptcies locally and find one with an out of state lender. Move into the house, have the utilities turned on then live there, for free. It would take the court about a year to kick him out. He told me about another “gig” he had just returned from in Switzerland. He was part of a team that was hired to develop an aluminum beer bottle container. It had to be able to rapidly cool the beer to a certain temperature in a certain amount of time. I seen those bottles so I’ve met one of the inventors of that item. He had his laptop and cell phone and he said that’s all he needed. He was fine living the life of a bum, didn’t need anything. Very friendly and open, had lots of books in his van, just living like a camper. When he needed money, he sold his brilliant mind for work. I don’t know if he was a liar but I got a sense he was telling the truth.
I met a guy who appeared to be a physicist, judging by the quirky "toys" he'd constructed from unlikely materials in his mother's backyard, and was a talented artist, who'd similarly make beautiful furniture out of scrap wood, driftwood, interestingly-shaped tree branches, that he'd sand and lacquer into works of art. He lived in a yurt he'd built in his mother's yard. (He was middle-aged at the time.)
Highly creative, but unmotivated to put any effort toward making a commercial go of his creations. Furniture stores, fine woodworking galleries and craft galleries would love to show his work, I think, but searching those out and hauling his creations there weren't of interest to him.
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