Stay Upwind

얼마전 누군가 읽어보라고 준 Paul Graham의 글에 이런 귀절이 있었다.

... The opposite extreme would be a well-paying but boring job at a big company. Big companies are biased against new technologies, and the people you'd meet there would be wrong too.

In an essay I wrote for high school students, I said a good rule of thumb was to stay upwind - to work on things that maximize your future options. ... I don't think people consciously realize this, but one reason downwind jobs like churning out Java for a bank pay so well is precisely that they are downwind. The market price for that kind of work is higher because it gives you fewer options for the future. A job that lets you work on exciting new stuff will tend to pay less, because part of the compensation is in the form of the new skills you'll learn. ...

나는 너무 성급히 만족하는지 모른다. 나는 너무 작은 것에만족하는지도 모른다.
사실 만족한다기 보다 그냥 즐기고 있다.
길은 여러개다. 맞고 틀린 건 없다. 길은 또다른 길로 이어지고, 길 위에 뭐가 있을지는 아무도 모른다.
그래서 즐겁다.
늘 새로운 일을 하고 새로운 것을 생각하고 새로운 것을 배우며 산다고 생각하는 것.
(이봐 하지만 이제 노후를 대비해야 할 나이라고!)