I was driving home yesterday, and talking with a friend who had his last day at BCG today - he’s going to medical school and changing up his day-to-day quite substantially (staring at a computer all day making slides to staring at books all day making flashcards is considered a switch-up, I suppose). Talking to medical school students is interesting (for me at least) because of how clear their path forward is, for the next decade, at a time when most people are trying to pick from the fig tree. Pre-med majors have a simple (enough) life path: get into medical school, go to medical school, go do your residency, find a job as a doctor, and earn a six (maybe even seven) figure salary while helping improve quality-of-life for the rest of us. Folks working on their PhDs or JDs also have a similar experience; they have been given a clear big-picture goal.
Back when I graduated from UT, I wrote about my thoughts being in-between two big chapters in my life story.
I was walking with my girlfriend the other day after graduation, and I recall telling her about how I’m in the intermezzo. I’ve spent five years with a very clear goal in mind - graduate - and my next big life chapter (working) starts in exactly two months. During that time, I don’t really have the same level of motivation and purpose and order to my life direction that I’ve had for the greater portion of my life so far — and this means that I’ll likely turn to Autopilot to determine how I spend my time.
I’ve been thinking lately about choosing the next chapter - about how to choose the next chapter. At the end of each year, I post “year-in-review”s to close out another calendar and take a look back - what happened, how I grew, and how I did on goals I set for myself. I’ve found it to be a good way to pause, reflect, and think about how my life is tracking at a more macro-scale picture; the day-to-day often leaves little time for ruminations on the greater goals. But what if I’m still thinking too narrowly? If I go on Autopilot and only think one year ahead at a time, it’s easy to let the outside world tell me what my goals are; the answer to “what comes next” is going to be “get a promotion and become a consultant at BCG”. After that it’ll be to get promoted and become a Project Leader. A Principal. A Partner. An MDP. Nothing’s wrong with making partner, being a doctor/researcher/lawyer. Certainly, the outside world will view you as successful for your career growth [1]. But success at goals that aren’t fully aligned [2] with your goals and dreams and aspirations isn’t quite success.
That’s the challenge: during the day-to-day, when the gospel we’re told and the gospel we tell ourselves revolves around “I can’t wait to be promoted so I can do the same job earning 75% more” - can I remove myself? Can I become the author of my life story, and write the next chapters intentionally and with meaning? Or will I end up a character?
[1] There was another conversation during the same car ride on American work culture and how much more dominating work is in the lives of Americans versus other countries, but that’s a topic that I’m not fully qualified to discuss.
[2] Yes, I used aligned in a paragraph talking about consulting. I’ve fully adopted the lingo.