Which Path Should I Take?
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
Deciding what to do for a living is probably one of the more difficult questions we ask ourselves growing up.
How are we supposed to decide at a relatively young age what skills to learn and what profession to go into? Especially considering how little we know about the world and how much the world changes with each passing year.
It's not like we don't know what we want in life. It's just hard to put in concrete terms, especially considering all the uncertainty out there. But to put it simply, most people want the same few things, and it usually revolves around living a happy and healthy life, earning a decent living doing what we enjoy, and being surrounded by people we love and cherish.
Unfortunately, having only those vague concepts doesn't help us much. For how many years would we enjoy being a dentist and looking at teeth all day? Are we okay working as an engineering specialist in remote locations looking after complicated machinery? How do we continue working as digital artists in this new age of generative AI?
The good news is if we don't know where we want to go, it doesn't matter which path we take. We just need to get somewhere (i.e., our vague concepts), right? Choose a path, walk long enough, and we'll surely get somewhere. For one thing, it's better than staying still and not getting anywhere.