I’ve always felt a sense of admiration and envy towards people who knew what they wanted to do with their lives early on.

Who do you want to be when you grow up?

This is a question we were all asked at some point in our childhood, with answers ranging from teachers and doctors to more delusional ones like Spider-Man or something. Usually, those choices are influenced by what we’re exposed to. It can be parents, friends, or someone you admire. It could also be the movies you’ve seen, the books you’ve read, stories you’ve been told, or the experiences you’ve gone through — really, all sorts of things.

When no mama is singing you back to sleep no more, you realize that you actually have to work! And now the question is — how do you get a job? 1 This is how I’ve imagined it so far.

First, you try something out of pure interest. Then, if you like it and you’re good at it – you concentrate on that thing and get better at it. As you get older, you look for career opportunities that you can base on this passion of yours. You search for universities that offer programs in your area of interest and apply. If everything goes well, that’s how you get specialized and get a job. 2

Now, the problem for many of my peers and for me personally is the fear of making a wrong decision. High school was a time when we all had to choose what to do with our lives. That’s quite a significant decision to make, innit? For me the problem was that I have a natural interest in many things and have a hard time focusing on one. I was afraid of becoming a jack of all trades and master of none.

To resolve all this mess back in 11th grade, I approached @mostafay.91 3 with these questions. Most of the ideas discussed here I got from that, I dare say, life-changing conversation we had.

Also, remember that all of this discussion is from the perspective of a young person who has a life ahead, born and raised in a post-Soviet country. But I suspect that this could also be relevant for some men in their 40’s going through a mid-life crisis 🤠

Table of contents

Answer the question “Why?”

The very first thing you need to do is to determine:

Why are you doing all of this? What do you get out of it?

Although answers to these questions might seem obvious, they are not so trivial.

I am more inclined to believe that true altruism does not exist. Hence, I believe that anything you do – you do for yourself, even charity. When it comes to any sort of “work,” in fact, I strongly believe that you HAVE TO do it only for yourself, you have to be selfish. Because I think that the sincerity of the “work” you do is measured by how much it benefits YOU, and if it does not, you will lack enthusiasm, and the work you do will lack quality and value. Inevitably, you will end up feeling miserable or resort to dishonest practices to compensate. So, don’t work because your parents wanted you to be someone. Don’t work to prove something to anyone but yourself. Don’t work for something you don’t find meaningful, or beneficial to yourself.

Secondly, ensure that it is something you actually enjoy doing. Ask yourself: “Would I do this for free?” If the answer is yes, you are on the right track. Because if you are planning to spend a considerable amount of your life doing something, it better be something you like, doesn’t it? Otherwise, you will probably end up hating your job, the government, your life, your wife, and all the people around you. You have to get something out of what you are doing; it is your life, after all! 4

Although it seems obvious that you should do what you like, what you like is not always something that can make you money for living. Here, in my opinion, passion for what you do is what matters. Yes, you may have to work at a job with a low wage for a quite some time, don’t be scared of that! Because if you are consistent in doing what you really like, it will eventually get you to the place you want to be. I will discuss this later in the text.

Lastly, but most importantly, remember that as a human being, you are not immune to greed. Such an egoistic approach to work is only right if your work is honest. The value of your work should increase because you are actually good at what you are doing, not because you are cutting corners and bluffing your way through. Be careful not to lose your morals and values chasing profit.

The things described so far might sound questionable and controversial, but my main point is this:

Only your honest work will benefit you and society.

And because I defined that for it to be considered honest – it has to benefit YOU – this principle is not selfish if understood and used correctly.

So, you are doing all this because it benefits you, because you like it, and because you want to live a meaningful and comfortable life.

Why do you need college?

Mostafa said:

You will use only about 5% of what you have learned at university on a real job. Everything else you will learn on the job.

Indeed, this is very true and it raises a reasonable question: “Why spend several years of my life on something that I won’t be needing anyway?”. 5 That’s a hard question to answer, and to make it easier, and to justify going to college for myself I had to break it down.

Why do you need the knowledge?

Well, my perspective on this has always been that any kind of knowledge develops your understanding of the world, and any information alters your perspective on certain situations. If you are capable of correctly using them to your own advantage, they give you the confidence to make decisions, and hence, bring you control over your life.

Let’s prove it with a thought experiment. Imagine you possess all the undeniably true knowledge and information. Imagine you understand the connections between the processes that are taking place in the world and in your life and how they are affecting one another. On top of that, imagine you understand the moral incentives and emotional drivers in people. You would have the power to make the most effective decisions and the most accurate predictions. You could answer any question with utmost certainty. You could act in the most morally right and beneficial way.

The knowledge that you acquire in school and university does not necessarily have to be actively used in your daily life, but it makes you powerful. In this sense, it is better to consider school and university education as an opportunity. It was not available a hundred years ago; it is a privilege – so use it.

Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

Even if it is the only thing you remember from biology class, it is still a piece of knowledge about the world. You’ll probably be just fine without knowing that fact, but having an understanding of how these things work makes you “educated.” The fact that you know what a mitochondria is implies that you also know that we’re all made out of cells. That, in turn, implies that you know how living organisms operate generally. Hence, you will at least have an understanding of where diseases come from, and hopefully, won’t think you’re being chipped when vaccinated and go around blaming 5G towers for every unfortunate thing that had ever happened to you. See where I am going with this?

Of course, remembering a bunch of pop-science facts doesn’t get you anywhere, but make you fun at parties. But my point is not about mitochondria. Knowledge makes you more immune to propaganda and misinformation. You will be able to identify if someone tries to mislead you into some nonsense.

Moreover, there is almost no business operation nowadays that does not include interdisciplinary work. Being versatile is a huge benefit in the workplace, and especially beneficial if you are planning to start your own business.

So to sum up:

Knowledge is your mitochondria, your reliable multi-tool, and your ultimate protection against bullshit.

Why do you need to learn?

Now that the value of knowledge itself is defined, the motivation to learn should be clear.

You never know what you’re going to like and do in the future. Because of this, it is important to never stop learning. The trap you might fall into by denying the value of what you are being taught in school and university is that you might lose interest in learning itself. I guess the most essential skill that these institutions nurture in people is both the ability and the desire to learn. In other words, you need school and university to learn how to learn.

Never lose curiosity, be open to new ideas, follow the trends, and do not ignore innovation. Be aware of what is happening around you to avoid ending up in a bubble. While focusing on your passion, staying open-minded and versatile will greatly benefit you.

Of course, the current education system is flawed in many ways, one of which is the unfair and ineffective assessment system that ignores the differences in abilities and talents among students. In that regard, complaints are very valid, but that’s a whole different topic. What I am trying to say is – try to get the most out of what we have now.

You begin specializing only in the final years of college by taking specific courses that you want to study; everything else is general, so choose your specialization wisely. If you know what you want to do early on – good for you, go ahead and do it! But if you don’t – don’t rush and take your time to explore what is out there for you.

People

Imagine living in an environment of intelligent, energetic, highly motivated, brave and bright people. Imagine having the opportunity to do whatever you want within this community. Imagine going out there and making friends with these people and doing whatever you want together! Wild.

So, the motivation in going to college is to acquire knowledge, develop skills, and meet people.

Why do you need a job?

Well, that should be a fairly simple question to answer. It is because of the industrial revolution and its consequences that has been a disaster for the human race. It could be approached in the same manner:

Why do you need money? – to be able to buy things that allow you to live comfortably. Why do you need to work? – to earn money.

One piece of advice here would be to imagine your “ideal life”. Imagine what it looks like, and how does it make you feel. Identify your needs and think of how they would be satisfied in this ideal world. If you clear that out, motivation to work comes naturally, and it is – getting to the place that you want to be, in other words, living the life you wanna live.

And that could be something like:

  • Having enough money to live comfortably and do what you want;
  • Having freedom of choice;
  • Having a sense of contribution and beneficence.

Notice how when formulated like this, monetary gain is not the sole motivation to work, and I think that is very significant. While acknowledging its importance – the focus is not on the money – but on yourself.

Job as a relationship

A really useful insight that Mostafa brought up was that a job is essentially a relationship between an employer and an employee. To be satisfied at your job, you have to make sure that these two things match:

Your needs Employer’s needs
What YOU want to do What EMPLOYER wants YOU to do
What YOU want your EMPLOYER to do What EMPLOYER wants to do

If these requirements are satisfied, you have found a perfect job for yourself or at least a workplace that you can build your career in.

Moreover, this perspective of work as a “relationship” proves that you don’t have to be exceptional to get a job. When hiring, an employer cares more about your personal qualities than your background. Your skill set (ability to learn, communicate, etc., as discussed earlier) and your passion are your safety net. You will be able to apply your skills wherever you end up being, and make up for whatever is missing on the actual job. Your ability to learn, your desire to explore and contribute will lead you through this and will get you money. AND if you are motivated and passionate enough – you will always want to make a contribution to the field in which you are working and to the quality of life of the people.

Making a choice and Opportunity cost

Finally, addressing my initial worries about making a choice, Mostafa gave some reassuring advice, and I think this is the most important part of this conversation.

You can’t be “the best” in everything. When making a decision, you have to take into account the sacrifices you are making and the possible lost benefits from not choosing the alternative option. An important thing to consider is that to become exceptional in the field you are in, you have to give up something. In fact, many times in life, you will have to choose and make sacrifices.

Do not compare yourself to others. Everyone has a different story, and everyone’s path to success is different. The person you might be jealous of is not doing the things you are doing. He or she probably has made their own sacrifices to get there.

You will not progress if you don’t make a choice though. If you are, like myself, not sure, or if you don’t even have any direction at all, here’s a trick. Consider every activity you are investing your time, energy, and resources into. There should at least be something you do, right? Identify how you can use that practically, dive into it, and give it a try! Only then will you get the answer.

Don’t be afraid of making a wrong decision; you can always change your course. Making mistakes is okay! The important thing is to correctly identify them and take action towards solving the problem immediately. Value every experience as a contribution to your success.

With all that said, one thing cannot be sacrificed – people. Be careful when making decisions and make sure that it won’t harm the relationships that you value.

P.S.

I doubt the liberal idea of:

You can be whoever you want!

In my opinion, it is not completely true and can’t be true. Sure, everyone is different and unique, but this also creates inequality. Absolute equality is an utopia; in the real world, we don’t have the same starting point, and you could just be born with no talent at all, and I think that’s okay! I would say play the cards you are dealt with, be happy for what you are capable of, and don’t get upset about something out of your reach. Correctly evaluate your potential and realize yourself to the fullest.

Aside from that, my arguments up to this point were mainly from a rationalistic perspective. I wonder sometimes that it might just be that you don’t actually need all of this thinking and should just go by feeling? Maybe all of this does not have to have a reason? But feelings are very volatile and highly depend on the context, basically – not reliable. Thus, I strongly believe that feelings shouldn’t lead your decision-making. I may be wrong, but that’s a point to consider.

Moreover, this is labeled a “conventional approach” for a reason. As much as I tried to generalize the ideas, what is discussed here is only one of many possible answers to the question, and it is certainly not the only path to success. As quite some time has passed since 11th grade there has been a lot of new input with alternative perspectives, which I want to talk about in the future.

  1. To be clear, finding a job is not that hard if you try. In fact, you could easily find a job that pays well even at a very young age. However, it usually involves a kind of labor that requires you to sacrifice something, most commonly your health. Here, I am talking about a more conventional way of building a career, one that comes after you graduate from university. ↩

  2. Of course, there is entrepreneurship, but my opinion on that is not yet settled. It has become a trend and is highly encouraged among society, especially among young people, to become entrepreneurs. Currently, I believe that before becoming an entrepreneur, you need to specialize in at least something, so the “school-uni-job” strategy must still hold true. In other words, I think it’s better to become a specialist in some field and gain experience in a traditional workplace setting before embarking on entrepreneurship. Similarly, I think government workers and politicians should be employed based on their competency and achievements in their respective fields, not because they are populists or acquainted with someone in power. This, I believe, is called meritocracy. Or maybe you can indeed start a business by delegating all tasks to specialists, taking only the position of a visionary, but I think without any real skill, no one would follow you, right? In either case, I think abandoning college education to pursue entrepreneurship is a very questionable endeavor. I’m not saying you absolutely need an MBA to start a business; rather, I just don’t believe you can become an entrepreneur out of the blue without any “real” background. I might be wrong, though, as I lack the experience and knowledge on the matter to make definitive claims, so this is subject to change and probably another topic to write on. ↩

  3. A man from Egypt who happened to teach us physics during the last two pivotal years of our time at school. I cannot overstate how fortunate we were to have him in my literally “middle of nowhere” hometown. I think what sets him apart as a great teacher is that every lesson he managed to teach us not just his subject, but also a lot about the world and ourselves. For me personally, he is a figure who had a massive influence in shaping who I am today. I am so grateful to have met him at this time of my life and feel the utmost respect and love for him. ↩

  4. An alternative perspective to this would be that work can be all about the money. “I don’t care what the job is as long as it pays well.” However, I think that this kind of attitude creates a feeling that a large portion of your life is not “spent” at work, but rather “wasted.” Personally, I couldn’t live with that feeling. Even if you are starving to death and in desperate search of any job, I think you should still look for something you don’t at least hate because you will end up doing a shitty job if you don’t. ↩

  5. Not true for all professions. You probably should go to college to be a surgeon (please do). ↩