An interim shift in how to think about the road ahead.
This week has been an unusual series of conversations with different individuals regarding their careers — those still in university, those in the early stages of their professional careers, and those about to embark on major pivots in their lives.
I’ve observed that these discussions would always gravitate towards ‘pathways’, including:
- Identifying what the best next step is based on the choices available (for whatever reason, optionality, money, prestige, trends)
- Listing down what interim roles are needed to get to the dream job, three or four role changes down the line
- Understanding when to move on from role A to role B, and what ‘trigger points’ need to be identified
These questions are all framed around moving from point A to point B, and I get why.
People love to think of their lives in chapters because it’s the most structured way to add logic to career choices. This line of thinking, ironically, is a stark contrast to what it actually is — a product of choice, passion, privilege, and serendipity.
There are some benefits. I explain my career similarly when approached in a formal capacity— a logical series of steps that make everything seem deliberate and well planned out (albeit done retroactively).
This explanation is helpful as a starting point when you are starting from a blank slate. But this ‘pathway’ type of framing life does not give the full complexity of our lives enough justice.
First, it implies, simply, a sense of linearity and unidirectionality: the finance person who became a tech person, the non-profit person who shifted to private sector, and so on.
Planning in pathways implies that we’ve moved on from the past, that the previous chapters are now housed in the shelf marked as ‘past experiences’. Only relevant as a distinctive marker of individualism when called upon.
But I’ve often felt like an educator, a startup person, a finance geek — even though I am none of those at present.
Second, is that the mindset of thinking in pathways implies a certain logical relationship — an input and output, and a ‘right choice’.
Life is anything but a math equation — people respond to the circumstances and opportunities laid out in front of them differently.
You will always be teetering between decisions, because you are the one with the most at stake, and only you can answer what matters to you.
So let me pose a different way to think about the road ahead.
What if , instead of mapping our future choices in steps and roles, we begin thinking of our future as a multitude of problems we’re yearning to solve?
What if, instead of fixating on the linearity that a well-planned pathway implies, we see our lives as waves that oscillate between problem discovery and problem solving?
This oscillation will mean three things: that we can solve for and live for multiple passions, that we can continue to discover new passions, and that we can always come back full circle.
So let me ask this alternate question: Instead of planning how to go from Point A to Point B, what problem do you care about solving the most? And if you don’t know the answer, what is your process for discovery?
