I played poker for a living for over 5 years. I never really cared for it, but it paid very well, and so I told myself that if I just did it for a short while, I'd have enough money saved up that I could do whatever I wanted for the next 100.
While that is a solid theory, what happened was that I grew to hate it so much that I never spent enough hours to save up retirement-type amounts of money. I also became largely desensitized to money (when you can win or lose $10k in a day with ease, it's not too hard to convince yourself to buy a $500 camera) and spent way too much.
Eventually I realized that for those reasons, I was never going to get there, no matter how good I had gotten or how profitable the game was, so I left to do a startup. The pay is pretty low now, but I'm happier, because I enjoy the process rather than the results, and there is some realistic chance of a windfall at the end.
I think the optimal strategy is to pick something you enjoy but that can pay the bills. Most people could probably enjoy multiple professions. Choose the one you would enjoy that pays the best.
>I think the optimal strategy is to pick something you enjoy but that can pay the bills. Most people could probably enjoy multiple professions. Choose the one you would enjoy that pays the best.
I think this is pretty good advice, but with a caveat. Enjoyment is not just a boolean function, but varies from unbelievably painful to completely enjoyable. I think is more of a two-dimensional optimization problem than a simple matter of picking the maximal paying element from the column named 'fun and interesting'. Doing java development at a large company and doing python development at a small company would both rank 'fun and interesting' relative to the rest of the total set of available professions, but I would still seriously consider the python position, even though the java position is bound to pay a lot better on average. But maybe you meant that, and I am just misreading.
While that is a solid theory, what happened was that I grew to hate it so much that I never spent enough hours to save up retirement-type amounts of money. I also became largely desensitized to money (when you can win or lose $10k in a day with ease, it's not too hard to convince yourself to buy a $500 camera) and spent way too much.
Eventually I realized that for those reasons, I was never going to get there, no matter how good I had gotten or how profitable the game was, so I left to do a startup. The pay is pretty low now, but I'm happier, because I enjoy the process rather than the results, and there is some realistic chance of a windfall at the end.
I think the optimal strategy is to pick something you enjoy but that can pay the bills. Most people could probably enjoy multiple professions. Choose the one you would enjoy that pays the best.