Book Review: The Pathless Path
The Pathless Path: Imagining a New Story For Work and Life
Paul Millerd
Three-Sentence Summary
An essay-collection style book about the journey of the author Paul Millerd navigating himself from a Default prestigious job to a Pathless independent digital creator. In the book's first half, Millerd describes his pursuit as a hoop-jumper, from choosing courses to get only As to jumping between programs for fast-track promotions. The second half focus on quitting the job, wondering about the future, searching for new ways of living, and learning throughout the journey.
Who Is This Book For?
Someone who is struggling in their daily work. Someone who is currently experiencing burnout or has experienced burnout. Someone struggles to find meaning in their jobs. Someone who seeks the courage to change the way of life but lacks community support. Or someone has a simple thought pass through their mind. Whether other ways of living exist that are not work-centered?
Major Concepts
The articulation of the two Paths is not complicated. The Default Path focuses on getting ahead and pursuing the conventional perceived success; the Pathless Path aims to find and commit to things that matter.
This book stands out because of the creepy feeling when I read it. I felt I was watched for the last year.
I grew in many areas: writing, giving better presentations, communication skills, and research. However, a few years into the path, the things I was incentivized to learn became specific to the organization, such as navigating political conflicts and adopting behaviors, dress, and attitudes that signaled I might be a future company leader. I sucked at these things, and my motivation tanked.
Then, Millerd cited a report on burnout. It states that when burned out, people “may start being cynical about their working conditions and colleagues” and may “distance themselves emotionally and start feeling numb about their work.” It happened to me again. The worst part is that it leads to a vicious cycle. Negative attitudes toward work will cause low performance. Low-performance results in self-doubt in capability. Self-doubt punishes used-to high-performers by working more. Long-term overworking becomes exhaustion, and exhaustion plus self-doubt pushes people toward depression.
Writer Jocelyn Glei, who worked at a startup, noted, “After being at a startup for four years and getting the chance to make tons of cool stuff, I was intoxicated with my own productivity. I got wildly ambitious and decided to 3x my workload, adding multiple massive new projects (of my own devising!) to an already intensive work schedule.” It was hard for her to see what was happening because she liked the work so much. However, “by the end of that year, I had produced a ton of incredible things. Still, I was a burnt‑out husk of a person.” She calls this her “busyness breakdown.” After work, she had no energy left to invest in relationships, health, and other things that mattered to her. She realized that when “the way we work today and the way we work tomorrow becomes the status quo,” it quickly becomes “the new normal,” and that crafting a new approach to living your life becomes hard. She was incredibly productive, but for her, it was not enough.
I was exactly like that. It was depressing. Pursuing satisfaction from work became a toxic productivity game. It was never enough. The only lucky thing is that I was not alone. My boss was suffering from the exact same things. We supported each other. We let it slow down and hope to stop it there.
Now comes the value of the book.
Quitting is not a decision on a single timestamp; it is a long process.
I knew things were going south, and something had to change. But I was rushing again. I was looking for a cure that worked overnight. That was when this book popped up at the top of my list.
I don’t like the sentence: “It takes time.” Losing control is not my favorite or default attitude toward life. However, this time I have to make compromises. After a few attempts of searching and thinking, something slightly changed in my mind. It was triggered by a cultural documentary on Timeless Architecture. I hope there will be a chance to share this stream of thought in the future. But the result is I might find my options, my pathless path.
Related Readings/Resources
Managing Oneself by Peter Drucker A list of actionable suggestions on knowing one's strengths, weaknesses, and values. It mentions approaches to prepare and begin the second half of your life.
Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber You know more clearly than anyone else whether your job is meaningless to society. Find the way out before it backslashes against you.
The Surrender Experiment by Michael Alan Singer A different way of proactively getting things done without pursuing them.
It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried and David Hansson
Book to avoid. Its circular argumentation on the “ideal” workspace provides zero insights into practicality.