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What To Do With Your Life

2012-10-02 · John · watch on YouTube · Everyday life · conversation qa

Answering a college freshman, John argues that adulthood is not one fixed choice: you keep deciding all your life and can do many things, so study broadly and, above all, make things with people you like.

What is said

00:00:00 — Greeting and Catholic-priest collar joke; Question Tuesday with one viewer question: a college freshman asks how to figure out what to do with life

  • ★★ On Question Tuesday John answers one question from a college freshman about how to figure out what to do with life, a question the brothers get almost every day. — 00:00:05 · Question Tuesday, Nerdfighteria

00:00:13 — Disagreeing with the question: adulthood is not a monolithic destination; happily-ever-after stories; the one-musical-note analogy; decisions unmade by circumstance

  • ★★★ John disagrees with the question: it implies adulthood is a monolithic state where you acquire a job and spouse and ride it out until death. — 00:00:15
  • ★★ John says he thought so too when younger, blaming happily-ever-after stories that end at finding love, treating what follows as a blank, terrifying morass of adulthood. (playful) — 00:00:29
  • ★★ John says 95% of romantic stories end with partners committing to each other. (playful) — 00:00:40
    • number check: 95% — doubtful
  • ★★★ John: the fear comes from thinking you can only do one thing, like picking one musical note forever; in fact you will always be figuring out your life and doing many things. — 00:01:03
  • ★★ John: decisions will be unmade by circumstance, e.g. a spouse's job in Kuala Lumpur, a sudden astrophysics PhD, an uncle's junkyard, or a little brother starting a video conference. — 00:01:28 · VidCon, Hank Green
  • ★★ John: like life now, adulthood means balancing idealism and practicality; even at 14 or 15 you are already kind of doing adulthood. (hedged) — 00:01:43

00:01:55 — Each decision narrows options, but so does not deciding; you can do more than one thing: William Carlos Williams, Julia Child, John and Hank themselves

  • ★★ John thinks what scared him about choosing school and a subject was that every decision narrowed his options, which will keep narrowing until death. (hedged) — 00:01:55
  • ★★★ John: options narrow even if you don't decide, and you needn't do just one thing, e.g. an electrical engineer who volunteers on archaeological digs. — 00:02:14
  • ★★ John says William Carlos Williams was both a poet and a doctor. — 00:02:24
  • ★ John says Julia Child, besides being an extraordinary chef, was a spy for the United States. — 00:02:26
  • ★★ John's college self would be surprised he became a novelist whose mustachioed face is on strangers' shirts, and Hank studied chemistry before writing Harry Potter songs. (playful) — 00:02:32 · Hank Green, Harry Potter

00:02:45 — Advice: study broadly, learn a language, read daily, make cool stuff with people you like; collaborating was the brothers' best decision

  • ★★★ John's advice: study broadly and without fear, learn a language if you can, and read a little every day. — 00:02:45
  • ★★★ Most importantly, John says, surround yourself with people you like and make cool stuff with them; who you do it with matters more than what you do. (hedged) — 00:02:52
  • ★★ John says the brothers' best decision as videobloggers was also their first: to collaborate with each other. — 00:03:03 · Vlogbrothers, Hank Green

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