Some of my favorite writings on career

I have been emailing these to myself for a while. It is better to post them on my blog instead.

G.H. Hardy.  After I read his Intro. to theory of numbers, I read his a mathematicians apology:

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There are many highly respected motives which may lead men to prosecute research, but three which are much more important than the rest. The first (without which the rest must come to nothing) is intellectual curiosity, desire to know the truth. Then, professional pride, anxiety to be satisfied with one’s performance, the shame that overcomes any self-respecting craftsman when his work is unworthy of his talent. Finally, ambition, desire for reputation, and the position, even the power or the money, which it brings. It may be fine to feel, when you have done your work, that you have added to the happiness or alleviated the sufferings of others, but that will not be why you did it. So if a mathemati- cian, or a chemist, or even a physiologist, were to tell me that the driving force in his work had been the desired to benefit humanity, then I should not believe him (nor should I think the better of him if I did). His dominant motives have been those which I have stated, and in which, surely, there is nothing of which any decent man need be ashamed.

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Good work is not done by ‘humble’ men. It is one of the first duties of a professor, for example, in any subject, to exaggerate a little both the importance of his subject and his own importance in it. A man who is always asking ‘Is what I do worth while?’ and ‘Am I the right person to do it?’ 3 will always be ineffective himself and a discouragement to others. He must shut his eyes a little and think a little more of his subject and himself than they deserve. This is not too difficult: it is harder not to make his subject and himself ridiculous by shutting his eyes too tightly.

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This one is by Raoul Bott, which I might have came across randomly.

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And so when I saw the two readings we just heard juxtaposed in a Scripture Service, I could not resist them. For they are appropriate to all of us, whether called to high causes or to lowly ones.

And they are maybe especially appropriate to the young people of today in their search of their destiny. For surely there never has been a time when our young people have been given such freedom and therefore such responsibility to find this destiny.

But how are we to know where we are called? And how are we to know who is calling us? These are questions beyond a mathematician’s ken. There are some who seem to have perfect pitch in these matters. There are many more who might think that they have. But with most of us, it is as it was with Samuel, and we are then truly blessed to have an advisor such as Eli. He stands for all of us Teachers as an example. For apart from communicating our call to our students, we should try and help them above all to discern theirs.

I well remember my Eli. He was the Dean of the Medical School at McGill and I approached him for help in entering the medical school there, when in 1945 the atomic bomb unexpectedly put an end to the war and to my four-month old career in the Canadian Infantry.

The Army very wisely decided to get rid of such green recruits as soon as possible, and so we all again found ourselves quite unexpectedly in charge of our own lives. I had graduated in engineering earlier that year but had already decided against that career.

The Dean greeted me very cordially and assured me that there was a great need for technically trained doctors. But, he said, seating me next to him, first tell me a little about yourself. Did you ever have any interest in botany, say, or biology? Well, not really, I had to admit. How about chemistry — Oh, I hated that course. And so it went. After a while he said, “Well, is it maybe that you want to do good for humanity?” And then, while I was coughing in embarrassment, he went on, “Because they make the worst doctors.”

I thanked him, and as I walked out of his door I knew that I would start afresh and with God’s grace try and become a mathematician.

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