{"id":5479,"date":"2013-06-07T18:47:32","date_gmt":"2013-06-07T10:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/?p=5479"},"modified":"2013-06-07T18:47:32","modified_gmt":"2013-06-07T10:47:32","slug":"may-20-1990-advice-on-life-from-calvin-and-hobbes-creator-bill-watterson-brain-pickings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2013\/06\/07\/may-20-1990-advice-on-life-from-calvin-and-hobbes-creator-bill-watterson-brain-pickings\/","title":{"rendered":"May 20, 1990: Advice on Life from Calvin and Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson &#124; Brain Pickings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>He stresses the vital difference between \u201chaving an enviable career\u201d and \u201cbeing a happy person,\u201d admonishing about the \u201chedonic treadmill\u201d of achievement:<br \/>\nCreating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it\u2019s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential \u2014 as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.<br \/>\nYou\u2019ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you\u2019re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you\u2019ll hear about them.<br \/>\nTo invent your own life\u2019s meaning is not easy, but it\u2019s still allowed, and I think you\u2019ll be happier for the trouble.<br \/>\nHe concludes by echoing Rilke:<br \/>\nYour preparation for the real world is not in the answers you\u2019ve learned, but in the questions you\u2019ve learned how to ask yourself.<br \/>\nvia <a href=\"http:\/\/www.brainpickings.org\/index.php\/2013\/05\/20\/bill-watterson-1990-kenyon-speech\/\">May 20, 1990: Advice on Life from Calvin and Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson | Brain Pickings<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He stresses the vital difference between \u201chaving an enviable career\u201d and \u201cbeing a happy person,\u201d admonishing about the \u201chedonic treadmill\u201d of achievement: Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2013\/06\/07\/may-20-1990-advice-on-life-from-calvin-and-hobbes-creator-bill-watterson-brain-pickings\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;May 20, 1990: Advice on Life from Calvin and Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson &#124; Brain Pickings&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reposts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}