In a rapidly changing world, we all need to have a compass that guides us to the right places. The compass doesn’t work unless we craft our own compass that fits our purpose and pace.
Our generation has been given a single type of compass that advises you to study hard, go to a great college, get a good job and retire by sixty. Many people follow the same advice and the same path without necessarily knowing why.
Why have I never bothered to ask why? Not so much because I want to but because I feel like we have to just to keep up.
Even once I got a good job, I am feeling bombarded with the information. I feel like I have to study and keep up with the latest trends, and tv shows. Even worse, I find myself constantly refreshing my email to see if there are any to catch up on. My work days go like this: I wake up, check on the instagram feeds, get coffee and breakfast, check some emails, read news, join endless meetings and meetings about meetings. Then the day is done. I never stop to ask myself, If I repeat these kind of days 3,600 days, where would I be at the end? Frantically “doing” this part of the society, what am I in the business of my life? LinkedIn Chief Executive Jeff Weiner asks prospective employees this question:
“Looking back on your career, twenty or thirty years from now, what do you want to say you’ve accomplished?”
I want to strip away the capitalist nature and the byproduct of hustle culture that this question implies that we must have accomplished something and asked myself,
“Looking back on your life, twenty or thirty years from now, what do you want to say you are? What are you all about? What makes you tick?”
Perhaps, we should keep crafting our own compass by 1) acknowledging the uncertainty and ambiguity as an adventure, and 2) asking questions for direction and momentum of the journey.
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