The time
has finally come - for some of us it’s filled with excitement, with joy, and
adventure of a new journey, or perhaps an admirable exit plan from a banal
career. For others it’s filled with a plethora of busywork, moving a family
across the continent, sorting through complicated financing plans for selling
homes, yada yada yada - or even worse, for a selected few it’s a mélange of all
these things.
Let me
take a break here; I just want to absorb and appreciate that none of the above
apply to me; my compassion is merciless, but I need to stop and appreciate this.
Writing
about a beginning of a journey experience is cliché; it’s melodramatic with
mercenary inclinations towards peers who are still going to continue to live their
lives in status quo, and look at you in envy as you run past them with your perhaps
self defined ‘grander’ step in life. But wait: both those worlds are scary -
one requires you to continue to live in a forever-going tedium, day after day;
the other let’s you escape it for a little bit, but still only leaves you with
the realization that, some day, you’ll be back at it, doing it again, and again
and again.
Now I
don’t want to make it sound all gloom and doom, but you don’t really need a
Sherlock Holmes tiered perspicacious thinker to come to the conclusion that -
you, the beholder, is the ultimate decider. The decider knows what to do next,
and free will is at your disposal. The world is going to be filled with
choices - in a ‘Moore’s Law’ sort of fashion; you have to be the decider; you
have to be the evaluator, and be the catalyst to the forthcoming.
If memory
doesn’t serve you well, perhaps you need a sticky - note on your desk for the
journey, to assure you that its going to end well; just ensure that its not a
self-nullifying rhetoric (as in, ‘good place available, clean, close to
subways, cheap rent - no cockroaches, promise! or baby sitter available - not a
pedophile, promise!).
And if
you are one of those who has it all figured out - perfect future job, perfect
spouse, perfect friends - and are reading this while shaking your head in a - ‘ha-ha,
you loser’ fashion, I have to confess a prejudice that I have; it’s that I’m
allergic to you…and you suck, because I have none of that figured out! And I’m
filled with vitriol that you have it all planned in a Newtonian fashion, but I still
see you as my JC, Allah or Buddha - whatever you believe in; you are the guru
of life - and I want to learn from you.
For those
you are stuck in the same cul-de-sac as I usually am, I want to reassure you
that you need not be paralyzed by this sense of state-less ness. I don’t have
any dogmatic chants or insights to share today, but the mere statement that you
need to be aware of what’s around you. Enough that helps you be informed, but
not too informed that you feel stupid about being uninformed about everything
in a paradoxical fashion.
This is
merely a model - not a template, for your existence. Don’t try to fit yourself
in a box, but discern what can be learned from it. And if all else fails, and
you still find yourself in a position filled with covetousness that others
around are going to someday surpass you, merely remember what Charlie Munger
once said - 'You don’t have to be brilliant, only a little bit wiser than the
other guys, on average, for a long, long time.’
Congratulations
future citizens of HEC MBA – you might be an expert, but I know you have your
doubts. Nevertheless, the best years aren’t behind us, but ahead of us.
