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What To Do With Your Life

2012-10-02 · Q&A · John · 3:23 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Everyday life · mode: Q&A & conversation · tags: recurring series

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

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

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
    • a number in question (doubtful): "95%" — check against the recording
  • ★★★ 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 (book series)

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

00:03:09 — Undercutting the sentiment: "Hank, you have a stupid face"; sign-off

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Harry Potter (book series) · Julia Child · Kuala Lumpur · opportunity cost · Question Tuesday · To His Coy Mistress · VidCon · William Carlos Williams

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