We all seem to have that friend who always knew what she wanted to do with her life and is doing it and another friend who was never quite sure and has drifted from one thing to another. What Should I Do with My Life?: The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question
The Path is Convulated
Humans are complex and messy problems and these stories capture that intrinsic uncertainty. As a group they capture strange tangents, backslidings and forward movement and how those terms are defined, emotional feedback loops, family and environmental influences, and personal belief structures.
One thing that stood out was that when someone was stuck on how to answer that question it was most often their own thinking that held them captive. A belief they held that was not necessarily the only truth and reframing the question changed the entire way they were able to answer it.
The Stories are Entwined
I enjoyed the reading process because the book simultaneously looked at the individually pieces and pulled them together. It’s written as a wonderful intertwining story and, as the author said, it’s something different because it’s a book and not a series of magazine articles, or even blog posts.
The book is a great example of multiple perspectives and and messy realities on a scale that is easy to relate to even to the point that Po says at the end that he wished he’d done some thing differently. You can pull out some career tips for your own journey, but you need to do your own digging. What was more important to Po was the sense of awe he came away with, that people can be so different and yet so much the same. I came away with a bit of the same.
The Correlations are Tangible
That feeling inspired me to take a step back and imagine that these are the people that I work with or interact with. It reminded me that I only see them at one small slice of the process. Many of them likely have similarly complex and messy stories, even if it’s not obvious from their resume. I feel that my own story is a logical progression, but when I look back at what I could highlight or where the inflection points were, then I can see myself too.
Do you know what you should do with your life? Was it a straight shot or was it messy? Is it still messy?
