About a year ago, I wrote about the beauty of having a grand project. A grand project is the work you do when the day ends. When you fulfill all the daily obligations you have and then can turn to the thing that you believe in — that you own.
The problem I kept finding myself in was that I was building, but not for myself. With school, internships, and jobs, you trade your work for compensation. You don’t have equity in what you build. A grand project? You own it.
Before the first day of the quarter, I’m realizing that I’ve lost my grand projects. After a failed startup, a disillusion with what writing can accomplish for me, and serial internships. I’ve been replacing more and more time for what I own with time for what I don’t own.
And don’t get me wrong — there’s a place for the things I don’t own. I’m developing the necessary skills to work on cooler things. However, there’s also a big place that needs to be reserved for the things I do own and I’ve forgotten about it.
It’s Not All About Employment, but it also kind of is
I’ve watched several people graduate from college with degrees just to apply to hundreds if not thousands of jobs and remain unemployed. And I can’t help but think if there’s a mismatch between what we’re told about…
