On caring

How much time do we spend, in our lifetimes, working? I mean, doing the thing that affords us a living. A ballpark estimate is likely only a Google Search (or AI prompt) away, but for the fun of it, let’s do some quick back-of-the-napkin math. Assuming the average person works from 20-65, 40 hours per week and 50 weeks per year, this gives us about 90,000 hours. That’s an impressive amount of hours. It is likely more for folks who tend to work longer hours than the regular 8-hour day prescribed by society, or for those who have longer careers (which will likely only increase given the expanding lifespans and shortage of labour in most of the western world). So, ballpark, most of us will probably spend upwards of 100,000 hours being productive in the capitalistic sense of the word.

So, why is this important? There are, of course, several important implications to this that most of us, I hope, are conscious of (time away from loved ones, etc.). But another reason why this, to me, is important to reflect on, lies in the nature of the work we do. 100,000 hours is a lot of hours. These hours should be spent on things that you actually care about, i.e. solving problems you care about.

Being on paternity leave has allowed me to take a step back from the grind of career development to be with my newborn daughter (which I recommend all new dads do). And, two months in, I’m also realizing that it’s given me time and mental space that I didn’t know I had to think about what I want to spend these precious working hours on when I get back to work. The what (title, job description, etc.) is important, but it’s only part of the equation. A minor part, actually. The why is probably a whole lot more important. It might not be the case for everyone, but I’m realizing more and more that it is so for me.

The why

The why is why we do what we do. In one of the most viewed TED talks ever, author Simon Sinek talks about the importance of starting with why. He mostly tackles the topic from a leadership perspective, but I believe that it just as well applies to career decisions. I won’t always like what I do every day, but if I have a clear why for my work, a clear purpose (aside from just being able to pay the bills, though that is important too), the likelihood of success and happiness are far greater than the alternative — that is, chasing titles, prestige, trying to impress others, etc.

Finding my why

Reflecting on my short career up until now has made me realize that there were times when I attributed too much importance to the what and not enough to the why Though it’s not always obvious, over the long run, that tends to lead to dread and the realization that you may not be spending your working hours in the most purposeful way. It’s easy to rationalize our choices — humans are really good at that.

The next few months will be interesting for me. I’ll get to witness a bunch of firsts in my daughter’s life. I’m getting married. I’ll be spending a lot of time in Europe. And I’ll also have a lot of time to reflect and think about my career — about the kind of work I want to do and the issues I want to help solve. I don’t have a clear answer yet, which is probably why I’m writing this. But some ideas come to mind: helping to build better cities; tackling car-dependency; promoting better financial literacy; helping fight climate change; bringing about cutting-edge technological products to public institutions. These are, granted, incredibly hard problems to solve, and problems that I can’t solve alone. But partnering up with talented people to work on such problems — problems that I truly, deeply, passionately care about solving — seems like a worthwhile use of my time.