Yesterday's book club meeting was my first time joining the event. It was so nice to meet my former classmates from the Personal Mastery Seminar. Just seeing them and discussing with them brought back the momentum I had during the PM seminar.
I admit that I did not carry on the momentum since I came back due to different reasons. I even plan to give up my 90-day goal, which was to learn Japanese, since there has been changes of circumstances and now I do not have the imminent need to learn Japanese. There are other more important things that I need to take care of in the current stage of my life. Anyhow, "no excuse" should be the reply I use after reading the first chapter of Brian Klemmer's book "Compassionate Samurai", which simply says that if you are really committed to something, you do not have any excuses but to carry out your commitment. I admit flat out that I failed to carry out this commitment and I will do my best for the next one.
I had the compelling urge to write something down after today's meeting since the topic and the sharings during the meeting brought back so many past experiences and memories that I would like to share with others. Hopefully they will find it helpful to some extent. For privacy concerns, I will not discuss any individual's experiences but to refer to it in general. I hope my classmates will not find it offensive.
During the meeting, more than one person shared their uncertainty about what they want for their life. In retrospect, I experienced exactly the same thing in my entire PhD life at school. In all those 5 something years, I was searching for the direction of my life after graduation. I did not feel very enthusiastic about my PhD topic, which was probably one reason that I did not know what to do after graduation. Otherwise, I would probably have gladly became a professor somewhere. Although being a professor seemed glorious to lots of PhD students, including myself in the beginning of my PhD time, I knew that I was not the type of person who could sit in the lab all day working on some theory without interacting with the outside world. You could tell me that professors do more than that, or just do not do that. But it was what being a professor looked like to me back then.
After giving up on professorship, I started searching for the right direction. I experienced cycles and cycles between finding the seemingly promising direction and later vetoing it and restarting all over again. I went through rounds and rounds of discussions with my husband, to whom the whole thing did not make too much sense in the first place. He is the type of person who would stick to his current direction and make every effort to do it right. He thinks that all other directions will probably be similar anyways and he would like to stick to the current one and achieve his best, unless there is some event that can prove the direction to be completely wrong. As I have later realized, there is no right or wrong in this situation. It is just a difference among different people. My husband could be right when he told me that I could have made bigger progress academically with the time and effort I spent searching for my direction.
I was the type of person who would like to know what choices are out there before making a commitment for life. Just to give you an idea, let me list all the things I have done during those years in order to find my current direction and professional goal, which are just perfect for me. I took several semesters of classes in Financial Engineering and later got a Masters from the IEOR department, as back then I planned to become a Quant on the Wall Street someday. I took several classes from the EE department and later attempted to get another Masters degree in that area but had to give up due to my pregnancy. I even thought about becoming an IP lawyer and took a class from the law school, which I enjoyed but had to drop it later also due to my pregnancy. (sorry, excuses again...) I also taught classes and thought about becoming a teaching professor somewhere close to home so that I can take care of the family. I dreamed about being a stay-at-home-mom sometimes as well. Or just simply openning up a flower shop or coffee-and-book bar
in China. I admit that I was young and restless. :)
However scattered or crazy these ideas may seem to others, I actually do not regret those days that I spend thinking and rationalizing these choices, as I believe that it was for these efforts that I am currently so certain about the job that I have now and the career path that I will take.
The purpose of sharing this past episode of my life is to encourage those people who think they do not know their goal of life to keep searching for it. If your desire is strong enough, you will find it, although you probably don't know how.
Frankly speaking, my current job does not fall into any of the catergories that I had thought about, yet it seemed so perfect for me once it knocked on the door, as I had analyzed my strengths and weaknesses so thoroughly during the search stage that I was so certain that THIS IS IT!
I hope all of you out there can find the goal or goals for your life. There are no right or wrong, or no big or small goals. It should be something that makes you feel fulfilled once you realize it in your life. Once you are certain about this, other things will become so much more clear and you will know what should be the right thing to do at any time instants. You will not be zigzaging but running directly towards your goal. How exciting it that?
Enjoy the process of searching!
