Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

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TopHatFox
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Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by TopHatFox »

As I wrote in my journal, "a Class of '12 grad was telling me how in the 5th year reunion many are married, in the 10th year reunion many have kids, in the 15th year reunion many are divorced, and so on until the 50th reunion where many are dead. These patterns to life are fascinating, almost like we are all on a similar path. Part of me really wants to rail against this normative path, and to do something completely different. As I was talking to the Class of '12 grad, who is in his 3rd year of med school, I thought to myself that five years from now, I may be very near my half-million goal, and potentially going on long-term adventures without dependents or marriage. All of this makes me wonder where my life will go if not the conventional route. Hm."

So, yes, if I personally don't want to be 70 looking back and only saying I worked an office job for decades, or I raised a kid, or I got married and then divorced, what else is there to do that is worthwhile, at least for me? I don't mean to make these traditional paths any less meaningful--because to many they definitely are--but not for me.

So...what can one do? Hike a bunch of long trails? Sail around the world? Grow a non-profit? Maybe venture onto Mars or the Moon or something? Maybe deep sea ocean exploration? I'm not sure, I suppose my ultimate goal is to sign up for and execute life stories that I would be absolutely excited to re-tell, and filled with self-pride that I did them. Ideally I'd like to do life stories that have never been done before in the history of mankind, but maybe the problem is that I don't yet know what these life stories are all too well. Something to ponder on. I have now realized that what differentiates me from other intelligent people is not so much my confidence or ability to speak eloquently, but my ability to stick to seriously consider non-traditional ideas/paths and to stick with them with above average discipline.

Anyway, thoughts?

rfgh
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Re: Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by rfgh »

Get married and don't divorce? If there's any purpose to life (there isn't) it's successful reproduction. Raising kids and having a family is AWESOME. Just do it right.

daylen
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Re: Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by daylen »

I think you are already on a different path, but I don't think that is the right way to think about it. Don't live an interesting life based on what you can say about it or how it appears to an outsider; instead, live how you want to live based on what makes you happy.

pukingRainbows
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Re: Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by pukingRainbows »

If you don't already have a strong drive toward a specific path, I think you'll end up in that same pattern. Simply because it is a lot more practical.

I'm not saying it's bad though. I think it can be amazing. The real trick is doing it well as was stated above. I know a variety of people who have a variety of lifestyles, and one group isn't amazingly happier or more interesting than the other. It varies from person to person regardless of their life path.

I guess, I'm just not sure why you are striving to distinguish yourself by being unconventional.

James_0011
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Re: Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by James_0011 »

"Something to ponder on. I have now realized that what differentiates me from other intelligent people is not so much my confidence or ability to speak eloquently, but my ability to stick to seriously consider non-traditional ideas/paths and to stick with them with above average discipline."

Are you sure this is true? Consider that you have only met one type of intelligent person (the type that studies hard and chooses to attend a liberal arts college). I think its likely that you haven't met unconventional intelligent people because they are doing unconventional things (not attending college for example).

I think volunteering or working for some cause after ere is a good way to find meaning. Also, consider that you can find meaning in a romantic relationship even if you don't marry (just have a long-term gf).

If you find a solution to this problem please let me know.

James_0011
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Re: Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by James_0011 »

rfgh wrote:
Sat May 27, 2017 10:04 am
Get married and don't divorce? If there's any purpose to life (there isn't) it's successful reproduction. Raising kids and having a family is AWESOME. Just do it right.
If its the only purpose, how do you account for people with no desire to reproduce?

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C40
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Re: Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by C40 »

Even as far back as when I was a little kid, I expected that I would not follow the standard married-kids-netflix-disney-blah blah blah type life. A lot of people probably think they want that - but it's as a sort of rebellion or avoidance of the default. But, probably like you, the natural direction for me -
my default - was something else. I didn't have some desire to buck a trend or whatever, it's just that I felt I'd do different stuff. I didn't ever make a specific decision, it's just what I was going to do.

One thing I'd say is to make sure you aren't directing your life just to be different. Or to have stories to tell others, Or to do things others haven't (unless that really REALLY is your thing). There have been so many people in mankind that you'll never ever been the first person to think of any idea of significance.

As far as deciding what to do - don't worry about that. You should focus on living the best life you can right now (for the whole duration of your capital building phase). If you'll be working for five years, that's plenty of time to let ideas roll around in your head. When you get to the end of your 5 years, you'll have a few options you've narrowed down to, and probably one that stands out as what you want to do first. You'll have many years to do different things. The only thing is, if you want to be a trailblazer in one specific niche, one that takes a lot of skill/fitness/whatever, then you should start at that right now as a hobby while working.

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C40
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Re: Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by C40 »

Also -- [having a wife and/or kids] and [having a unique/interesting/fulfilling life] are definitely not mutually exclusive - especially if you don't have the time burden of full-time work.

BRUTE
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Re: Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by BRUTE »

brute recommends Olaz never refuse an invitation, never resist the unfamiliar, never fail to be polite and never outstay his welcome. just keeping his mind open and sucking in the experience. and if it hurts, Olaz knows it's probably worth it.

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TheWanderingScholar
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Re: Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by TheWanderingScholar »

As everyone has said; don't trap yourself to a different a lifestyle just to be different. A normal life can be a lovely life if done well. Just right now, enjoy life, go with the flow, and save money.

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Re: Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by jacob »

Olaz wrote:
Sat May 27, 2017 9:48 am
I suppose my ultimate goal is to sign up for and execute life stories that I would be absolutely excited to re-tell, and filled with self-pride that I did them.
What if [eventually] nobody listens or cares? Would it still be worthwhile for you? What if, when you start regaling your great tale, your audience would rather listen to someone else's experiences of the 15th time they went to Disneyland because that's more relateable to most of the audience?

I'm reminded of something Did said once, which I paraphrase: "If I ride down the street in the city I live in on a bicycle, my neighbors couldn't care less. If I move to another continent and ride down the street there, my previous neighbors suddenly think I'm awesome."

I think there's a level of Wheaton when it comes to such tales. People like to hear about things which are different but not too different in order to be excited. If it's too different, it's just going to be weird. For example, "hiking the AT" is cool and awesome to most. "Vagabonding from New York City to Chicago" is weird even if it's been done by fewer people.

Being two decades ahead of you in life experiences which are 2-3 sigmas away from average, I think I have some good stories. In terms of telling them, I would really have to seek out my audience (like you guys---and really, maybe just 1/4 of you guys). The random person would be far more interested in hearing about a daytrip to Myrtle Beach and attending a Kansas or Miley Cyrus concert.

Dragline
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Re: Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by Dragline »

Yeah, the goal of "do something no one has ever done before", although superficially attractive in many ways, does not seem to be a good one to me, because it is fixated on what other people do. Also bear in mind that nobody may want to listen to your stories, even if interesting and true. In fact, you actually don't need to actually have experiences just to tell stories. ;-)

It would be better to engage in activities that have been done many times before and enjoy the journey than obsessing over doing something unique.

At this point, it would seem enough simply to become financially independent in a relatively short amount of time and enjoy that journey as much as you can. If you become FI even before age 40, you'll already be more unique than probably 99.8% of the population, and that's probably enough uniqueness. Heck, only about 5% of Americans ever become FI in their lifetimes.

You have a lifetime to figure out the rest.

anchor
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Re: Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by anchor »

I completely agree that the vast majority of people probably won’t care about the kinds of things you or others here would be likely to pursue or find interesting. However, when thinking about the future and the life I want to live I sometimes find myself thinking along similar lines as the original post describes, and I wonder if that way of thinking might still be useful in a certain kind of way. I guess I’m thinking that sometimes maybe it can be useful to try step outside of yourself and consider how others might view you and your life (especially if you try to consider that view from the perspective of someone you respect or admire) as another way to determine if you’re living up to your own internal standards. In other words, if the goal is to have an interesting life, I wonder if wanting to ‘have good stories to tell’ might still be useful as a sort of yardstick to gauge your actions and guide your plans for the future if you narrow it down a bit to say ‘I want to have stories that the kind of people I admire would find interesting/exciting.'

As a (somewhat unrelated) example, when it comes to making decisions that have an ethical component, I sometimes find myself thinking ‘how would I want to be remembered when I’m gone?’ (i.e. what kind of person would I want to be remembered as when I’m gone) as a sort of heuristic – the point isn’t that I necessarily truly care about how people will think of me when I’m gone (I know that in the grand scheme of things I’ll probably be forgotten very quickly, and they probably don’t give me a whole lot of thought now anyway), but it’s a somewhat easy way to frame my thinking and keep the important things in mind. Another example that comes to mind is that I was recently considering signing up for some sort of an online dating site and had to come up with a self summary describing my interests, personality traits, etc (not something I ever thought I'd do, but I’m fairly recently single and introverted, so it's an attempt to push myself outside of my comfort zone). In a way I hated the idea of trying to sell myself by only highlighting the positive aspects of my life, but from another perspective I actually found that process to be fairly enlightening because it forced me to consider who I really am versus how would I like to describe myself to another person. In other words, are the things I’d like to claim are important parts of my life really the things that I spend most of my (free) time and energy on (for example, do I actually spend my time learning to play music and reading about philosophy and history, or do I really spend my time browsing the internet). I guess the important part is that the goal for me wasn’t to write a description that would appeal to anyone and everyone that might come across it, but rather to write an honest profile of myself that would appeal to and attract the kind of person I’d want to spend time with.

I realize that maybe this is just another way of saying what’s already been said, but I find that I still kind of like that ‘if my life were a novel, how would I want to write it so that it’d be a good read?’ way of thinking (even if I know that the potential readership might be small).

Dragline
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Re: Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by Dragline »

Divide it into chapters that might overlap, but need not bear any relationship to one another. At least that's the way I try to think about mine. You get more living in that way. The idea of "collecting memories" can also a useful concept (if it is not misused with over-planning).

Zalo just finished the college chapter and may or may not have finished a relationship chapter. But planning too many chapters in advance may limit your ability to enjoy/experience the current one.

You want it to be a good write/reflection for you, not necessarily a good read for someone else. This is one of the reasons journaling is a powerful tool, as it forces some present focus and intentionality upon the writer.

EdithKeeler
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Re: Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by EdithKeeler »

Here's the great revelation of my life: very few people give two shits what you do or how you live your life. Seriously. It finally hit me when I was about 45 or so that after decades of thinking about what other people might think or perceive what I did and did not do, none of it mattered. Everyone else is too busy living their own lives to think very much about yours.

Trust me: at the 30 year reunion, the conversation will be: "there's Jack, he made kabillions as a trader and has three great kids. Oh, there's Olaz, he backpacked across the country naked. You see the blurb in National Geographic? Oh, and there's Rene--she finished med school and got a phd and had two sets of triplets!" And on. At best, you'll be an anecdote in someone else's conversation. Beyond that, really: no one cares.

So: do lots of things. Figure out what you like and do more of that. Figure out what you hate and avoid that. Don't rule out kids and marriage until you've been around kids and happily married people. You're a guy so your shelf life is longer, but after years of saying I didn't want kids I'm surprised to realize that I kind of wish I'd had one.

All of this is to say: live intentionally. I agree that it's best not to just get on the same conveyer belt of life with everyone else, but don't necessarily discard something because it's what everyone else does, either.

Dragline
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Re: Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by Dragline »

EdithKeeler wrote:
Mon May 29, 2017 10:56 am

So: do lots of things. Figure out what you like and do more of that. Figure out what you hate and avoid that. . . .

All of this is to say: live intentionally. I agree that it's best not to just get on the same conveyer belt of life with everyone else, but don't necessarily discard something because it's what everyone else does, either.
There was a chapter in a book I read recently, "Algorithms To Live By", that was all about explore/exploit functions. Simply stated, the question is how much time should you spend exploring new things in any given environment and time frame before you decide what you like and focus mostly on doing that?

The value of exploration is always high at first, but goes down over time as you try things that are less and less attractive. Conversely, the value of exploitation (doing the same thing again) rises over time as one learns what one likes.

The best solution turns out to be something called the "Gittens Index". But since this is too hard for the average person to calculate in real life, a more useable framework is what Jeff Bezos calls a "regret minimization framework". The idea is that you project yourself forward to some ripe old age and think about what you might regret not having done or tried.

Which leads to another set of algorithms known as Upper Confidence Bound algorithms and a "life strategy" of optimism in the face of uncertainty. "Following the advice of these algorithms, you should be excited to meet new people and try new things -- to assume the best about them, in the absence of evidence to the contrary [which evidence will accumulate logorithmically over time]. In the long run, optimism is the best prevention for regret."

However, in general it seems that people tend to overexplore -- to favor the new disproportionately over the best options already discovered. {Call that the FOMO effect if you will.] Contrast this with Thoreau's essay on "Walking", where he preferred to to most of his travelling close to home and never tired of finding new or different features in places within a ten-mile radius of home. "Walking" is an ode to exploitation.

Where more "exploring" makes sense is apparently in environments where the options and the "payoffs" associated with particular activities keep changing. YMMV.

BRUTE
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Re: Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by BRUTE »

interesting, brute has used this exploitation/exploration framework for probably a decade now, but never knew it had been studied formally.

brute came to think about it through the concepts of A/B testing and multi armed bandits in software (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit, the Gittins index makes an appearance right at the top!), and observing his own behavior - frequenting the same restaurant and eating the same meal 80-90% of the time, despite there being plenty of places to explore.

personally, brute uses a different ratio of exploitation/exploration in various areas of his life at the same time. he suspects that he can only take so much exploitation and exploration at any one time, so repetition and routine in one area enable him to explore more in other areas. conversely, exploring certain new fields makes it easy to stick to fixed routines in other areas that feel more "solved".

brute also observes phases of expansion or exploration, vs. phases of contraction/reducing. for example, he'll investigate a new field of cooking and buy a few gadgets. then, after a few months of playing around and using them, he discards the ones that don't make the cut, contracting the field of activity.

brute isn't sure if humans overexplore or overexploit on average, but he also doesn't think the average is that useful. the important part would be if they apply the optimal explore/exploit (expl{ore/oit}?) ratio in the different areas of their lives.

it could be said that FIRE assumes most humans underexplore their career and financials, with ERE additionally assuming underexploration of non-monetary ways of attaining/producing value.

on the other hand, FIRE and ERE both seem to assume overexploration in consumerism.

Scott 2
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Re: Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by Scott 2 »

IMO the OP is a roundabout way of asking the meaning of life. Responses will vary by philosophy, though the group here is homogenous enough to offer an apparent consensus. An alternate response could emphasize service to others above all else.

Defining your path by the milestones and achievements is easy, but in my experience, the moments between have been what I ultimately value.

Outside of my intimate personal relationships, nobody cares about my family, pets, career, house, money, trips, hobbies, etc. Even for those that do care, is only in the context of how those events influence their personal narrative.

I personally found that realization very freeing. Instead of striving for some idealized existence, I moved towards discovering who I am, nurturing what I value. There was a LOT of noise in the beginning, and even now, I need to stay vigilant against internalizing values others have projected onto me. Selfish? Maybe. My life is the best it's ever been though, so I don't care.

Campitor
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Re: Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by Campitor »

All the feedback on this thread to Olaz seems to boil down to this: be the hero of the story you'd want to emulate. Because the only person who will remember your story is yourself and maybe a few trusted individuals who truly knew you well. And the only person who will truly care about your story is you and no one else.

Comparing your life to someone else's is a sure fire way to disappoint yourself. No matter what you do, someone else has done it, is going to do it, do it better, or tell it better which will appear to emasculate your story of life/adventure. And just because someone appears to live the normal life doesn't mean he/she hasn't had, is having, or will have the adventure of a lifetime that most people will never hear of let alone experience.

Dragline
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Re: Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

Post by Dragline »

@brute -- yes, some of the other topics in that same chapter of that book were about the Multi-armed bandit problem and A/B testing. It's a fascinating read that also covers the optimal stopping problem and many other commonly confronted decisions about the best ways of organizing and sorting information, forming networks and when to "pull the trigger" on something. There is a lot there to help get one away from erroneous gut-decisions/System 1 thinking and provide a framework for actual System 2 kind of analysis.

The information age has made exploring a whole lot easier, but also a whole lot more distracting. We may be entering a time when people really become unable to fully exploit what they have already found due to FOMO.

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