HOW I CHOSE MY CAREER AT THE AGE OF 36

MY IDEAL CAREER TRAJECTORY

At 22, I left my home country of France and went to the US to study abroad at the University of Washington, in Seattle. I was teaching students who were barely older than I was. It felt great, I felt privileged and more importantly, I felt as though the world was full of possibilities. I was in a top-ranked US university, surrounded by smart, ambitious students from all around the world. I also enjoyed being an authoritative figure. I thought I’d get a PhD in the States, or at the very least have a productive career there, but things did not exactly go as planned. I was not much of a planner back then but had you asked me what my life might look like in 10 years, I probably would said something along the lines of: “Well, I’ll have my PhD, a steady job in academia, and perhaps a family of my own”.

MY ACTUAL CAREER TRAJECTORY

I’m now 37 and none of these things have happened. After graduating and working several part-time jobs in the US, I had to go back to France. I needed a company to sponsor me in order to stay and for anyone who does not work in the STEM field, it’s quite a difficult thing to accomplish. I’m not going to go into the why—at least for now—but let’s just say that I did not give it my best shot. So I had to go home. I was crushed. Looking back on this period is difficult for me as it is for anyone who is trying to come to terms/ face a failure of any kind.

A STRANGER IN PARIS, EXPAT IN YOUR HOME COUNTRY

Back in France, my new purpose was to go back to the US. I felt out of place, like a refugee who had no intention to leave, but that’s unfair to refugees. I had a chance to stay there and I did not take it.  already had a Master’s degree so the only way to go back now was to apply for PhD programs and PhD programs who could offer a “full-ride” were few and far between. Still, with my average grades, I thought I had a shot if I aced my GRE. For 3 years in a row, I took the GRE, each year spending a few months studying with a vengeance, mostly to try a better quantitative score because my verbal score was already very good. I must have spent hundreds of hours studying geometry, statistics and algebra and after 3 years, my score did not improve, it even got worse.

FACING MY FAILURES

It brings to mind a conversation I had with my then-girlfriend that stuck with me to this day. Sensing that I avoided projecting myself in the future, because at that time my plans were fuzzy to say the least, I remember being on the defensive and said something along the lines of “But I have to commit to that for the rest of my life, it’s a tough decision to make”. In my mind,

My girlfriend at the time was able to sense that something was wrong with me (as girlfriends usually do). She did not want to hurt my feelings so she hinted at my lack of motivation and I remember that it led to a long discussion about what each of us thought a career ought to be. I realized (and I’m sure she did as well) that we just had different visions of what it should be. For me, I was scared to commit to something because I had to be really passionate about this thing. After all, whatever it was, I going to do it for the rest of my life. For her, I was overthinking, your job was there so you could earn a living, and real life was what happened outside of your cubicle. I’m oversimplifying but there was a real difference in how we saw things.

WHAT IS YOUR IKIGAI?

It brings me to this concept of Ikigai. You’ve probably come across this Venn diagram. It illustrates the Japanese concept of “Ikigai”, a word that does not really have a good translation in English (or in French) but that essentially means "a motivating force; something or someone that gives a person a sense of purpose or a reason for living". I like to think if it as the joie-de-vivre derived from one’s work. I remember stumbling upon this image years ago and thinking “Pretty neat, the Japanese definitely have it figured out”. Now that I look at it more closely, it can be criticize on many levels but it’s something that has been done and that is beside the point.

word.  We all have a purpose in life. That’s what some people think.

MAIN TAKEAWAYS FROM IT

Nevertheless, this Venn diagram is a pretty solid framework to consider your own career. One is almost tempted to look at it and find the formula that would maximize that central area (name?) but this would be a pointless exercise. Here’s how I prefer to look at it: Think about how you would rank these 4 items by order of importance. Now you can picture circles of different size. Now picture each one of these circles’ size changing over time. Even for the most gifted among us, those will inevitably change over time. (Even Michael Jordan eventually became bad at basketball).

Pick a color for each circle, make it more or less transparent? Add another layer of complexity to the whole thing.

Looking at this idea of purpose, I think that I, like many people I ended up with in this call centers, had many things we liked and many things we were pretty good at, but –each for our own reasons—we did not have the self-confidence to self-realize.

HAVING A GOAL VS HAVING A PURPOSE

Never in these 3 years (or in the years priors to that for that matter) did I have a clear goal: an idea of what I wanted my life to be like. I was in the US, I had friends, I could get by financially, I shouldn’t be too greedy. I never told myself that, but I think that’s what was on the back of my mind.

More importantly,

I don’t subscribe to that idea. Having a purpose entails 2 ideas I’m not a big fan of: 1) There’s some omniscient power who chose that purpose for us and 2) it’s likely our goal in life is to find this purpose so we can be fulfilled. What if He or She meant for you to become a teacher, but instead you became a doctor? Maybe some part of you would know you’re on the wrong path and you’d have to live with it (along with the fear that you might have disappointed Him).

YOUR CAREER IS VERY MUCH LIKE A MARRIAGE

I was born and raised in France, but I was raised by a single mom from Laos –a refugee of the Vietnam war—and in her culture, it’s still very common to have arranged marriages. Growing up, we did not talk about it but my siblings and I knew that she would not try and impose this tradition on us. Had she tried to impose this on any of us, we would have rebelled. We were too westernized to abide by such traditions. Nevertheless, there’s a part of me that understands and even respects the tradition. If you look at divorce rates in France or in the US, about 50% of marriages end in divorce.

…MAYBE AN ARRANGED MARRIAGE

I think this is analogy works well as it highlights the difference in values between the Western world and the East. One cannot help but wonder, how come divorce rates are much higher in societies where people get to choose their partners than in countries where many have no choice in the matter? I’m reminded of a sketch by Indian-Candian comedian Peter Russels who tackles this topic of arranged marriages. HE remembers an episode in which his mom picked a girl for him and said “you’ll grow into her”.

As funny as this may sound, there’s some truth to this statement. A more accurate definition of Ikigai is “XXXX”, meaning you might not like something at first, but as you get good at it, you might grow to love it.

You have to START TODAY

So, where am I going with all this? Well, it’s rare that one truly loves something if they’re not good at it to begin with. Sometimes, you might need to throw yourself in an arranged marriage and try to make it work. Give it your best shot and see if you can make it work, see if you can improve it. Sit down, identify the weaknesses and work to improve them. Do that long enough, and you might find that that whole chicken and egg argument is not as important as it once was.

Set attainable goals

Of course, all this comes with a caveat. To quote Stephen King: “[…] while it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while it is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one.”

That’s hard to argue with. But we’ve all heard this type of statement before. This emphasis on hard work. There’s more bumper stickers and posters about this than XXX.

THE MAIN MISTAKE I MADE

My way of doing things: I always wanted to write, but seldom did it. Inside, I was scared and thinking: I’m not ready. I listened to that tiny voice saying “you’re not good enough” you have to learn more about it, so instead of actually writing, I would read about writing, or listen to people talk about writing. Too much dreaming, not enough doing. I don’t regret the several years I spent working in this call center. I got to really know a few people who I’m proud to call my friends today, but we all suffered from the same affliction, and it’s always easier to see the flaws in other people. I’ve always wanted to write. Now I’m going to force myself to blog every week. If Stephen King read this, I’m hoping he would give me his stamp as a “competent” writer. Either way, I’m going to keep at it and see where it takes me and so should you!

DON’t make the same mistake I made

Maybe you look at this diagram, you can think to yourself that you have it pretty good right now. If that’s the case, more power to you. You should still ask yourself 1) how you would order these different items and 2) whether you can picture that ranking change over time. For those of you who still struggle to find something they love, who like me erred for many years, my advice is not to adopt the Asian way, nor to fully embrace the Western way. How cliché for a mixed-race person to say that, I do realize.

I do believe in having a purpose. It wasn’t always so.