Several years ago, I asked my aunt - who has had professional success - to help me make a decision regarding school. I was considering transitioning from an undergraduate program directly into a graduate degree program, rather than graduating back into a full-time job. This situation can best be described, I think, as a matter of doubt leading to paralysis. Malcolm Gladwell recently had an interesting story to tell about this subject, much better than I can:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2013/06/24/130624crbo_books_gladwell?currentPage=all
But I digress. My aunt and her husband agreed that higher degrees were not a matter of money so much as a matter of choice - the ability to broaden professional choice, both in the sense of a career path and the ability to find a job at any certain place and time that a person preferred.
I can't count the number of times I had by then changed my opinion on that subject - although I came to agree with even her narrow point only years after the conversation (I absorb ideas very slowly, for better or worse), and I have held this position ever since. However, the proposition implied by the question is no longer "in scope" to my current situation. Two things changed:
1) I no longer expect to be working as long, which changes the proposition of additional schooling from a discounted cashflow perspective, and
2) I have come to understand Product Management as a job where a history of job success can trump educational credentials
In my eventual agreement with her broader position, I had to come to understand why she assumed choice was more important to begin with. At the time, I had no such notion. (As much as people talk about the idea of "common sense", Voltaire stated all we need to know: "Common sense is not so common." Probably because our internal monologue gives us an undeserved illusion of ourselves as rationalists.)
Choice is important, I think, because the future is unknowable. We are always predisposed to underestimate the amount of change that lay ahead of us. When we "plan for the future", what we are more often doing is planning for the logical extrapolation of the present. It's all we can do, because we have no way of understanding the person we will become. We would better utilize the time to maximize our preparation for, tolerance of, and readiness to embrace whatever unexpected choices will become ours to make. For that matter, this is just as true on a daily basis as it is from one year, or even decade, to the next.
It occurred to me recently that this pursuit of greater choice describes the fundamental proposition of my life over the last year, and it includes the following things that I have found some success with:
- Time: Having true control of your time is the ultimate matter of choice in anyone's life. Most directly, I am learning to resist unwanted obligations on my time. The worst of these are the ones that recur, the ones that we don't choose, and the ones that are the result of obsolete decisions from our past. Further progress on my part will require greater bravery in resisting these "stickier" time obligations.
- Habit: I am trying to learn to break bad habits more effectively. This requires - among other things - letting certain habits through for a time. For instance, I have a habit of sitting in coffee shops as a way, primarily, of resetting my head from days or weeks spent thinking about work (more on that later). I'd prefer not spend money on something like coffee (or gas, for that matter), but it is clearly better than the alternative to me, which was that thoughts of work would consume whole days that they didn't need to.
- Health and Fitness: Eating better and getting adequate exercise so enhanced my energy levels and general day-to-day disposition that they equate directly, in my mind, to time saved.
- Honesty: Being honest - always and to everyone - so alleviates mental obligations of guilt and anxiety that when I learned to do it a few years ago, it felt equal to me to quitting a high-pressure job. More time saved.
- Credibility: This is an extension of the previous item and a lesson originating from my job that also applies to personal relationships. Only promise what you are sure you are capable of. Then try to exceed it. This is the glue of lasting, meaningful relationships, in both business and personal life, and people that understand the good nature of your character are capable of being conduits to your future choices in profound ways.
- Love: I was always sickened - as all children are - at the idea that love might be an obligation, something of weight that could be dropped and shattered if we fail to be attentive. Well, I finally see it. Love is only fully internalized when we see it as something we must take responsibility for, rather than something that we remain helplessly in (or out of) the thrall of. In the context of choice, love is the logical conclusion of credibility, since only the people that love us will fully respect and understand the choices we will make.
And a couple places where I need to do much better:
- Expectation: it can be difficult to reset expectations with people you have had long relationships with, whether they be family, friends, or a significant other. But in all cases, you do the best by that relationship to align the time you devote to what gives you the greatest enjoyment. I have realized how much time I devote to these relationships that I do not enjoy, and - more substantially - that do not do justice to the time I am devoting to that relationship. I owe it to them to reset how we relate to each other and how we spend our time together. (Again, ultimately solving for time, above all else.)
- Courage: so many of the aforementioned items give us additional time (and space), but it can be tempting (and easy) to retreat backwards from engaging with life. But what kind of choice is that? Philosophically, someone could easily describe this as an avoidance of choice, as a forfeiture of optionality. What could be worse than to strive for choice and then take a pass?
