The Pathless Path: Imagining a New Story For Work and Life

Seth Godin puts it bluntly: “The world just gave you control over the means of production. Not to master them is a sin.”

Here’s the truth you have to wrestle with: the reason that art (writing, engaging, leading, all of it) is valuable is precisely why I can’t tell you how to do it. If there were a map, there’d be no art, because art is the act of navigating without a map. Don’t you hate that? I love that there’s no map. – Seth Godin

Behind our money fears are existential fears, like the fear of death or the fear of not being loved, respected, and admired. These fears are likely not solvable but we can learn to coexist with them.

People are very aware of the absurdity of much of what you have to do to succeed in different companies and institutions, but still often gaslight themselves by starting off their own complaints with, “I know I should be grateful, but…”.

This is what Harvard professor Dr. Ben‑Shahar calls the arrival fallacy, the idea that when we reach a certain milestone we will reach a state of lasting happiness.

Many people I talk to are convinced that the formula for living on their own terms is saving up enough money. I wish they knew what I know: the longer we spend on a path that isn’t ours, the longer it takes to move towards a path that is.

Whyte, wrote about this shift in his book The Organization Man, published in 1956. He shared a snippet of writing from a young man typical of the era: “What distinguishes the comfortable young men of today from the uncomfortable young men of the last hundred years…is that for once the younger generation is not in revolt against anything…We don’t wa

By choosing a unique and personal fixed point, in Mill’s view, you are not only raising the odds of finding a path worth staying on, but you are also serving an important role in pushing culture forward.

The more we associate experience with cash value, the more we think that money is what we need to live. And the more we associate money with life, the more we convince ourselves that we’re too poor to buy our freedom. – Rolf Potts