Printed Matters

All my life I’ve found the answers to things in books.

So. Now that it’s time to reinvent what I do for a living, it seems only natural to turn to my old pals and get a little career guidance. Sure, the Net’s a great resource. But there’s nothing like holing up in bed on a rainy night like this one and actually poring over some self-help manuals.

Here’s a few gleanings:

Finding Your Own North Star, by Martha Beck. Subtitle: “claiming the life you were meant to live.” Not a bad book; well-written, humorous. Chock full of exercises, questionnaires to fill out, sentences to finish. Such as: “What are you afraid of? Does your fear tell you to do anything specific? If so, what?” And then there are two blank lines where you can write down your response. You get the picture.

The Pathfinder, by Nicholas Lore. An entertaining tome that is, in essence, an update of the old What Color Is Your Parachute paperback you probably perused in your early post-youth. Here the basic gambit is to hone in on what matters to you (I like the section entitled “What does ‘doing meaningful work’ mean to you?”) and then to translate those values into jobs you’ll feel an affinity for. I’d recommend this book to you if you really have no idea at what interests you enough to devote 8+ hours a day to it.

ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income, by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett. Don’t get excited. If this subject interests you at all, you’ve already come across these “secrets” elsewhere or you sussed them out yourself: you know, configure your blog for SEO, find a gap in the supply and demand cycle to exploit, interlink between posts, etc. Still, it’s handy to find all these useful tips in one slim volume.

The 4-Hour Workweek, by Timothy Ferris. Even if you’re not about to undertake most of the things Mr. Ferris recommends, this is still a fun and occasionally bracing read. Part of the Ferris ethic is that you need to strip your life of all the stuff that takes time but isn’t productive. “Simplicity requires ruthlessness,” the author says. Think of Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People transliterated for the Twitter generation.

Career Renegade, by Jonathan Fields. My fave. The author recommends plunging head first in the churning white waters of entrepreneurship, utilizing technology and sheer wit to blaze a trail in a way that only you can.

The first two books will appeal to those looking to translate their native dispositions into the likeliest livelihood that comes with a standard job description: butcher baker candlestick maker. The next three urge you to invent your own job description, and each title assumes you are temperamentally suited to viewing life as a continual escapade.

But enough about me. Have you come across books that helped you get your head around the whole Right Livelihood issue? If so, please spill. You know I’m a compulsive reader; suggest a book and I’ll probably head right over to Powell’s and buy it. Tomorrow.

jetsam: reality sets in

Eerie moment Thursday morning while out for a stroll with Mac. Over on Knott Street at one point, I looked up at an elderly woman standing on her porch, who was staring down at us. She says to me: “Are you going to work today?”

I might have said: (a) “I was dumped four weeks ago,” and burst into tears; or (b) “Every day since the third grade has been a work day for me;” or even, “You better believe it, lady – got a To Do list as long as your tibia.” Instead I mumbled “no” and hurried Mac along, confused by the question.


Probably she just confused me with someone else, but the question plunged into existential crisis. I guess I said “no” because I was responded to what I assumed she meant. No longer do I hie myself off to “my job.” But working? Mais oui. That day I sent off three resumes, took a meeting about an upcoming theater gig, went to the downtown library to collect some research materials, and finished a pro bono editing project. If that ain’t work…..

……ah, but. None of the above generated income, you see. And this same day saw the arrival of the first unemployment check. That was sobering. I mean: you don’t expect to be comfy whilst on the dole, and don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to have it, but…still. It was less than I expected – significantly less than half what I used to get from the theater. The best you can say is that it will slow down my siphoning from the savings account.

But then. I opened the savings account years ago, after all, when I first realized the whole theater thing was not sustainable. And lo, the day has arrived. The account must now sustain me, and thanks to The System, those funds will go a little further.

And then? And then? That’s the real question. I’m working on it. Tick tick tick. Simple man, simple dream.