Is this advice the answer to my unsaid prayer? Haha, my discipler will kill me.
Q. I graduated from the best undergraduate institution in America, and I’m now at a top private school in Japan working on my master’s degree in engineering. But I’m afraid engineering is not a field I want to work in. I want to live in Japan, but I don’t want to become one of those tired workers returning home on the train late at night. Thinking about growing up, getting a job, and picking my own future makes me feel like I’m losing my mind and maybe my soul too.
When I think about the jobs I want to do, I think about all the people I’ll be letting down, and I wonder if I’ll be letting myself down as well. Will I spend the rest of my life thinking “I had the potential to be something great”?
I’m also afraid that if I don’t take a top job now, while I’m at the top of my education, I won’t be able to move up into that top job later. How do you plan a future appropriate to your skills and abilities without sacrificing your values or your own compass, if your heart isn’t aimed that high?
A. It’s important not to fall into the trap of thinking that there’s only one path to success — that taking one of the perceived “top jobs” at a “top company” after graduation is the only way to achieve professional success. Indeed, some of the most successful professionals are the ones who, at an early stage in their careers, had enough confidence in their skills to stop worrying about credential building and instead focused on finding opportunities where they could make a meaningful contribution.
Consider Sumner Redstone, chairman and chief executive of Viacom. Mr. Redstone started his career as a highly credentialed lawyer. He graduated from Harvard Law School, held a prestigious clerkship, and in private practice, argued cases in front of the Supreme Court. It was not until he took a risk and took over his family’s failing business, though, that he put himself on track to become one of the most successful people in the media business.
