r0dman.com

Last night I volunteered to speak with some kids from my old school about the work that I do. The night is a careers “expo” of sorts, and most fields had a representative or two. I represented “Information Technology” on my own. Crazy, since it’s such a broad industry but I was up for the challenge.

My school, a private school, really pushes it’s students into university. Since it’s become the status quo for “successful” families nowadays, the parents really want their kids to go to uni too. It gives them status to be able to brag to their friends about. Back in the day, I too went down this track, and after six months actually quit uni and joined the workforce. It was the best decision that I ever made for my career. Out in the workforce I realised that those with a degree usually end up with the same issues of finding work as someone without a degree – a lack of experience. Experience is king in IT, and often a degree may make finding work easier, but without a degree you have a four year head start on everyone else! Now while this obviously doesn’t apply to all industries, it certainly does in IT in Australia.

Telling parents this was received in a number of different ways. One parent said “but surely nowadays you HAVE to have a degree”, adamant that her son needed a degree. I wasn’t telling her that her son shouldn’t go to uni, just that he should explore his options. Most of the parents were happy to hear my story, and in some ways happy that there is indeed more than one way for their son or daughter to get into the industry.

What struck me so hard was one parent. His son was the most keen kid that I spoke to for the whole evening. You could tell that he had a really strong interest in computers and really wanted to get into the industry. The father on the other hand just wasn’t interested and quite obviously didn’t want to be there.

It was amazing that I was sitting there, trying to give his son all of the help that I could to send him in the right direction, yet as a parent, he just didn’t care less about what was going on and obviously wanted the night to end so he could go home.

When I quit uni my parents weren’t happy at all. At 18, they didn’t believe that I was able to make the right decisions for myself yet and as a result they didn’t support me in my decisions. Seeing this kid last night, and seeing his dad’s display of “couldn’t care less” parenting, it has just reinforced my beliefs in how I will raise my kids one day.

While I understand that children, and even adults are never going to make the right decisions 100% of the time, I’m going to support my kids in whatever they want to do. Life’s too short to push them into something that they aren’t interested in.

Support peoples’ dreams, and help them to become their true self. Help them to break away from the norm and beat mediocrity.

When I was a kid I was always competitive. I competed in athletics and always wanted to win. Back then I think it was just because I was given the opportunity to compete in an event, and as far as I knew, you only ever competed to come first.

Through the later school years and a year or so after leaving school, I was finding my place in life. It was hard to see mates getting handouts from their parents while I had to work my ass off to get anything, and even then I couldn’t compete in their world.

Nowadays though, I see that everything I’ve been through has taught me some serious lessons. Small lessons like appreciation for money, but more importantly knowing what is actually important to me.

Time after time back in the day, I’d be annoyed that I didn’t have something that one of my mates had, when in reality although it would be nice to have, it wasn’t really that important. (Eg. a mate gets a nice new skateboard from his parents, but I can’t afford one so I don’t get one – in reality I was never into skating anyway). Nowadays, it’s financially a lot easier for me to buy something just because the next person has bought it, in “keeping up appearances”. I used to do this, but now I’m over it – as far as I see it, it’s just another form of competition.

Buying a nicer car, renovating the house or moving to a more upmarket suburb. Even just the places that you go out to dinner. It’s fine when you’re making the choices for yourself, but it’s crazy if you’re just doing something for first place in the game of life.

I know a couple that live well outside of their means, just to try and keep up with the rest of their family. The whole family competes constantly. Houses, cars, TV’s, computers, and now children. You name it, they’ll all try and outdo each other. It’s sad really, because when they actually want to do something, they can’t afford it or don’t have the time, because they commit so much of their resources to their competitive lifestyle. They end up living someone else’s life and not the life that they truly want to live.

I had a (cross country) mountain bike race on yesterday. My first race since last year and in a higher class than before. It was a real challenge for me, but I realised a lot of things while I was racing. A fair few of them unrelated to this post (things about technique, etc) but most importantly that I wasn’t really that interested in winning. I’m more of an “I wonder how fast I am” racer. It’s a personal challenge more than anything else for me. Sometimes when it comes to sport I wonder if I should try and be more competitive, but really, why? For the kudos of other people? I just want to go out and ride, and do the best that I can. If my best is first place, great, if it’s 20th, fine. I came 7th on the weekend.

I’m happy with where I’m at. Sure, a bit of competition in sport is healthy, but to me not being too competitive in life means staying true to what you actually want, rather than living a life of competition between friends, family and colleagues. It means you can live the life that you want, not what others want you to live. I couldn’t think of a better way to live really..