How to Choose Your Own Destiny

Posted by admin on January 30th, 2007 filed in General

Technically speaking, its not wrong to say that its a good thing to “disbelieve” the government . That however, is only half the answer. It is incomplete and unsatisfactory, because it assumes that the government is trying to lie to you (they are not), and it provides no actual guidance to answering the question.

When the government makes faulty predictions for the future, it does not mean that they are lying to you. It simply illustrates the truism that the minutiae of a capitalist economy is beyond the control of any individual or group of individuals, no matter how intelligent. Command and control policies to churn out graduates in specific fields according to quotas will fail, simply because there is no good way to accurately predict the “needs” of the market.

Simple disbelief does not provide any guidance to answering the all-important question confronting us constantly throughout our lives. That question is: how do we determine our own destinies? I will try, in my own small imperfect way, to help others to find their own answers, in the same way that I did. I believe this would be particularly important for those young people who have recently finished their studies and are unsure as to which path to pursue.

I found my path by asking myself 3 questions in succession, and by finding the answer(s) that fall within all three.

The first question is, what are one’s strengths. This first question is quite possibly the most difficult. To be able to answer this question requires a level of self-awareness that most teenagers, when confronted with the choice of what to specialise in at university/polytechnic, do not possess. Some people do not gain this level of self-awareness for the entirety of their lives. I should know: I only knew to ask myself this question when I was 19, and only started having an appreciation of how difficult this is to do when I was 21.

There is no easy way to gain the self-awareness to answer this question. The only way I can think of is to ask yourself this question everyday, and to confront oneself with one’s own strengths and weaknesses. Be as frank and honest as possible, possibly to the point of underestimating one’s own abilities. Seek the opinions of those close to you, like your family and/or friends, but never let any one of those opinions be decisive. Ultimately YOU are the one who has to decide what your strengths are.

When I confronted myself with these questions, I found to my comfort that at the very least, I knew I was proficient in the English language and logical reasoning. That set the stage for the next question.

This question is comparatively easier to answer than the first, but the difficulty lies in its scope. Most people have many things that they would like to do, but not all of those things are doable as a career path. In addition, some people prefer to do certain things that they like for fun and enjoyment, rather than as work.

For these reasons, when you consider what is it that you like to do in the context of a career path, you should keep in mind the following: (a) is this something that, at the very minimum, can be done? (b) would doing this as “work” destroy your love of doing it?

Once you have identified the things that fall within this category that also uses your strengths, go on to the last step.

“Reward” to me has a very broad meaning. It could mean financial, emotional or spiritual rewards, or any combination of the three. I think for most people they would like to have all three. Such an occurrence is entirely possible, in varying degrees, but largely depends on the subjective likes and dislikes of the individual.

Some people may prefer more of one or the other. I think it is safe to say that most people would prefer to have at least a certain level of financial reward from their jobs. Some would go for the big money, but others may find that beyond a certain level, more money doesn’t do as much for them as other things, such as more time to spend with friends and family, and enjoying the time spent with these loved ones.

Whatever your preference, this step is one that you must consider carefully.

Hopefully by the time you have worked your way through these questions, you would have narrowed your options to those that answers all 3 of the questions.

One last important point to remember. We as human beings are changing all the time, and this includes our strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes. There is no shame in changing your mind when after travelling a path for some time, you decide that the current path is no longer the right one for you.

The one most crucial thing that people do not commonly talk about, is that not only do we have to be adaptable to changing environments, we also have to be adaptable to the changing self. There are times when we have to change our environments and choices in order to accommodate the self that has changed.