Consuming and Producing
Posted by Max Dunn Wed, 09 Aug 2006 15:35:11 GMT
Many times when a young person is trying to figure out what they will do with their lives, they are given the advice to “just do what you enjoy”, and are led to believe that if they do this, then the money will follow and they will be able to support themselves with this activity. However, I think that this advice falls short of the truth, and a distinction needs to be made between “consuming” and “producing” activities.
For instance, watching a movie is simply “consuming”. It would be hard to make a living off of watching movies all day long. However, writing reviews of movies is “producing” and this is something that a career can be made of. Likewise, playing video games is simply a consuming activity while writing video games, or even blogging about how to play video game, is a producing activity. Another example would be watching sports versus playing sports or eating a good meal versus preparing a meal.
So when giving career advice, the question that should really be asked is: “what do you enjoy producing?”
This is also a good principle to think about with the other activities in our lives. When we have some free time, it is fine to read a good book. But we should also balance this consuming activity with a producing activity, like doing some writing ourselves.