Albert Einstein famously made his biggest contributions to physics during his annus mirabilis or "miracle year". In 1905, he published four papers that each made a major impact on modern physics.
But Einstein wasn’t yet a well-known professor, and didn’t even have a position at a university — that all came later. Instead, he wrote in his spare time from working as an examiner at the Patent Office in Bern, Switzerland.
If your job fills your life with meaning, pays well, and is rewarding, then I congratulate you!
You’ve found the holy grail we’re all supposed to be looking for. The advice to “do what you love” is everywhere, combined with the subtle insinuation that if you don’t love your job, you’ve somehow failed.
But that’s not the only way. The Einstein option is to separate your money-making time from your meaning-making time. Find work that’s stable and pays well and leaves you fresh to focus on your true calling in your spare time. It’s an equally valid lifestyle, and many famous people have done exactly this. For instance, Einstein.
Einstein described the patent office as “that worldly cloister where I hatched my most beautiful ideas.” He wrote that “the peace of the secular monastery and the material reassurance for the hard times” were very helpful for him.
Should you pull an Einstein?
This path may be especially underrated for first-time startup founders. On the one hand they all want to be Jobs or Elon or sama — people who have an extremely strong vision of the future and pursue it monomaniacally. However, the financially sustainable path to getting there is not obvious. So they're torn between meaning and money.
To them I say “porque no los dos?” Hell yea to the sense of purpose and ambition. But as long as you're making progress on that front, it doesn't need to be all-consuming. You'll get there, just like Einstein did.
I should acknowledge that there are tradeoffs here. If you let yourself get too comfortable in your normie job, you might not follow through on your vision. The best time to eat is when you're hungry. If you're no longer hungry enough to bring about the glorious future you imagine, you might not put in the effort that's required.
The Einstein vs The Curie
Another consideration is that this strategy works better for some than others. Consider the case of Marie Curie. Unlike Einstein, Curie was totally focused on her chosen area (chemistry), studying like mad and getting multiple degrees while making almost no money.
But this was maybe her best option. Being a woman in the early 1900s, it was incredibly hard to be taken seriously as a scientist. So independent publishing may not have worked for her.
Plus, Einstein did theoretical physics through thought experiments, which did not require any special equipment. Curie, on the other hand, had to have a chemistry lab for her work of isolating radioactive elements. She needed institutional support, both to lend her credibility and provide her with equipment, whereas he was free to ignore it.
So add the Einstein option to your mental quiver of life-strategies. It might give you options you didn’t know you had.
You did this while founding TopScore, right? I think it's a good idea and I've always kind of thought this way.
Love this. Also think it's worth noting that this idea of "be an Einstein in your spare time" could easily be misread as advice to be a genius hermit in your spare time, because that's how he is often thought of. [Edit: Or maybe, people wouldn't be hermits exactly, but they would just share findings infrequently with random known experts who don't have the time to fully follow the project, or they would share publicly for feedback from a whole host of randos who don't understand the whole vision, idk]
The truth is that Einstein had a highly educated and capable confidante in his wife, Mileva Einstein-Maric. While the extent of her contributions will never be known, they did have lengthy and frequent correspondence, and it seems naive to think this made no difference in Einstein's passion or conclusions, at least the speed with which he reached them. (I would appreciate any thoughts on how much you think Mileva contributed to his success in his spare time! I have read selections from each of their biographies, and some journalism online, but I'm not really clear on what role she played)
If true, this would mean, to model Einstein, you'd need at least one capable person who is closely attached and confided in regularly about your progress and difficulties, ideally from beginning to end for a project
Again I like the piece and recommendation :) I certainly don't mean to imply Einstein is any worse a role model, just to clarify what I think emulating him might look like.