Letter on career decision #4
To Khushi,
I’m actually happy that you took the leap to leave your current job. I finally got the solitude to untangle the thoughts you had regarding career choices. There are two things here, one more important than the other. Is the life of whatever you want to be (insert baker or wedding planner) a good life? And secondly, do you like doing that thing (baking or planning weddings)?
There is also a third question that bothers you more than these two, which is: Is there a definite way to become what you want to become? To this third question, I would say: certainly, there are ways to become anything, as long as your heart is in it. Your mind and body won’t follow you to a place your heart is not sure of.
So, which of the two is the more important question? Is the life of [insert career] good? Or do you like doing [insert activity]?
On a good day, the life in every successful career is great. Who wouldn’t want to be a law firm partner, a tech CEO, or a top artist on their good day? Each job has a novelty that is unique and joyful. The commonality here is that success itself feels good, irrespective of the field.
But what about the bad days? When it’s 12 at night, and you’re in the office finalizing your presentation or fixing the code. Or when you wake up at 4 a.m. to go for a run. How do you survive that day? How do you fight the frustration of what has become of your life—when you miss your friends’ birthdays, ignore your family’s health issues, or put off relationships for it? How do you not quit on those days? How do you come back tomorrow to do it again? The only way to survive that is by loving what you do—not just the status it brings, the impact it makes, or the money it gives. You have to love what you do in the moment.
You can’t survive the life of a writer unless you love writing, word by word—pressing keys on your laptop until a story starts to form, then pressing backspace because the sentence is too dull. Deleting everything and starting over because the writing isn’t as good as you wish it to be. Yet.
An interviewer once asked Djokovic how he’s been able to stay at the top of the game for a decade. His answer, seemingly too simplistic for the throne he sits upon (but perhaps the only real answer), was that he loves hitting the ball.
A few years ago, I read David Goggins' Can’t Hurt Me, a biography about how he overcame his childhood to become an ultramarathon runner. Do you know what he said about achieving this feat of running long distances? He said he wanted to be the person who puts one foot ahead of the other.
How do you know whether you like doing something? The answer is simple: just by doing.
The reaction won’t happen until you collide with reality, and you’ll never know the feeling of being a baker or a wedding planner through imagination.
So how much should you dip your toe in to gauge how warm the water is? I say, jump in the pool.
You don’t know if you like water until your head is submerged. The only way we ever know we love something is when we overdo it.
So you don’t aim to be a baker. You just start baking haphazardly. You bake poorly for some time, and you toss more than you serve. You bake whenever you get the time and with whatever ingredients you have. Then a friend compliments you on your baking, and you start sharing it more often. In some years of doing this, someone notices your cakes or bread and offers to place an order. And somewhere along this journey, you start calling yourself a baker.