A friend once asked me, “should I get a PhD or buy a company?” Caught off by the weight of the question, I didn’t have a good answer. It took me a while to understand there is no good answer.
There is no right or wrong choice. Rather, there can be a deeper exploration of how each choice may affect you. And another question emerges:
How do you think this choice will shape you?
Now you can project out a few months, a year, or 5 years. If either choice is possible, there’s something else, something deeper you’re after. A desire to be or become something.
The dream in your mind will reveal what you’re truly after. The root answer though is often the same, regardless of how different the initial choices are.
- Perhaps you want to prove something to your parents or yourself.
- Maybe it’s long-term stability or wealth you’re seeking, or both.
- Maybe you want power over others, or control or influence.
- Perhaps you want to teach young minds or run a successful business.
- Perhaps you want to build an empire to protect you and your family.
- Perhaps you’re looking for recognition in the eyes of others.
- Maybe you want to make a lot of money so you can give it away.
- Or you just love building things, and what you enjoyed most as a child.
You are the judge, jury, and executioner of what’s revealed.
Now you know. Now you know what’s driving you. And that gets you one step closer to yourself now.
Who you’ll become or how that choice will actually shape you can’t be known until after the fact.
But you do know yourself better today. Why you envision the future you do and how the past plays into it is known to you right now.
That awareness itself will shape you.
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