Would you be willing to do something very unsatisfying (for example, clean toilets) for five years if you were certain that the experience would afterwards bring you a deep sense of personal fulfillment for the rest of your life?
Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and assume that this deep sense of personal fulfillment would come from some supernatural power, right? I mean, can you really come to expect a lifetime of happiness after five years of cleaning toilets? How does that work if not from a genie in a lamp? Are you scrubbing the porcelain and suddenly get some deep existential revelation about life and its meaning? So yeah, if some higher power, be it God or a magic genie, is going to give me this amazing sense of fulfillment in exchange for five years in a lousy job, I'll take it. Why not? Five years isn't much in the scheme of things. And there will still be good times during that five years. It's not like I'm cleaning toilets 24/7. I'll get time off to hang out with friends and watch reruns of Community.
*Question of the Week comes from The Book of Questions by Gregory Stock, Ph.D.
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