I don’t know why I put the title of my blog “a young economist’s blog”, first of all, I have a strong opinion about economics research and social science in general (feel free to check out my previous post on Rethink Social Science here); second, I have decided not to start a career in academia or in a research institute although I do like to get my papers published. I heard it can be a bad indicator to school if I changed my mind and wanted to pursue a tenure professorship later on in life, unless I did exceptionally well in a particular industry that favors the teaching and research of this university. I understand the challenges, and the different orientations between academia and industries. Anything can be hard, what matters more is whether it is worthy pursuing. Personally, I see teaching as a non-profit activity, and research a personal interest. I do not grasp the concept well how to make a living out of what seems to me a charity and partially, a hobbit. I love research by nature and I wish and probably will do it for life. I believe it is probably optimal to keep my motive pure instead of being pressured by time and money when it comes to searching for the truth.

What do I like to do for a living? That’s an interesting question. I consider myself extremely fortunate to even have a clue at this age. I doubt Einstein had a clear answer to why he worked at a patent office before inventing something trillion times greater. But why not, after all, it all comes down to a paycheck right? Living for a paycheck? I beg to differ.

Maybe I think differently from most, but have you been a child before? What’s your wildest childhood dream? Did you take actions to make it come true now that you are a grownup? Oh, if it doesn’t matter to you anymore, then what are you dreaming now? It was interesting to see how we replace our dream with everyone else’s dream – dreaming about having what someone else has. 🙂 I doubt that type of dream is original or valuable in any ways. I call it a universal dream, and it spells like G-R-E-E-D. It was a joke. But you get the point. I think we all can do better than exchanging something original and valuable with something that’s not. 🙂