How to Think About Your Career
If you had asked 22-year-old me what my “career aspirations” were, I would have looked at you blankly and then casually changed the subject to what programs you’d recommend to model cute 3D bunnies for a video game, or whether the writers of Alias would be so devious as to ship Sydney Bristow and Sark. It’s not that I didn’t think about my career at all. I was ambitious — I wanted to be a part of something big. I wanted to be able to support myself financially and not worry my parents (as this was a high bar set at doctor, aka the “stablest of all professions,” I suspect they still secretly worry about this.) I wanted the kind of job where I wouldn’t be watching the clock every hour, daydreaming like Rebecca Black about Friday . But beyond that, the specifics of “thinking about my career” was a giant grey cloud to me. It felt almost icky to be too career-oriented, like if you were, you were that kind of self-absorbed person constantly trying to game the system by sugar...