"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned...
...so as to have the life that is waiting for us." - E.M. Forster
I think this is what I have just done.
I always had a plan - get a master's degree, then a good-paying job in operations in a warm climate, and climb the chain as fast as possible. In the name of this plan, I was in Miami Thursday and Friday interviewing with a medical devices factory. I think I'll get a job offer. I would be hired in as a senior analyst, get paid on an MBA scale ($$$), and its in supply chain. Two years ago, if you'd told me I could have this, I would have jumped on it. Its everything I ever wanted.
I thought about it the whole way home on Friday. And I knew, deep down, that it is not what I want now. That getting up to go to that job every day for the next year or two years or five years of lifetime would not make me happy. So by the time I got home, my mind was made up, and I signed the forms accepting admission into the IOE PhD program and the fellowship, and turned them in Monday morning.
And it won't make me any extra money - in fact, it guarantees I'll be broke for the next five years. But it will give me even more tools to think and challenge and live a life I can be happy with. And more time to explore my interests intstead of a company's interests.
I think I made the right choice by letting go of all the planning I'd already done.
I think this is what I have just done.
I always had a plan - get a master's degree, then a good-paying job in operations in a warm climate, and climb the chain as fast as possible. In the name of this plan, I was in Miami Thursday and Friday interviewing with a medical devices factory. I think I'll get a job offer. I would be hired in as a senior analyst, get paid on an MBA scale ($$$), and its in supply chain. Two years ago, if you'd told me I could have this, I would have jumped on it. Its everything I ever wanted.
I thought about it the whole way home on Friday. And I knew, deep down, that it is not what I want now. That getting up to go to that job every day for the next year or two years or five years of lifetime would not make me happy. So by the time I got home, my mind was made up, and I signed the forms accepting admission into the IOE PhD program and the fellowship, and turned them in Monday morning.
And it won't make me any extra money - in fact, it guarantees I'll be broke for the next five years. But it will give me even more tools to think and challenge and live a life I can be happy with. And more time to explore my interests intstead of a company's interests.
I think I made the right choice by letting go of all the planning I'd already done.