Once we are caught up in the routine of our lives, even if we find that it doesn't sit well with us, we are almost shackled to the avoidance of the discomfort that arises from changing that routine. I can testify to that. Now that I am removed from my life of Engineering - even though it has only been a week - I feel released. I've chosen to feel like a whole new pleasant and fulfilling set of experiences lie ahead of me. The past is gone. I have chosen to take a break in order to re-establish myself.
Why was it so hard to leave?
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Engineering Is A Highly Vulnerable Profession
....or rather, Engineers will almost always find traditional engineering jobs in volatile or vulnerable industries.
How do I have the confidence to say this?
Because if you look at most of the industry collapses in the last 50 years, you'll notice a trend. Although people from all walks of life are affected when an industry takes a hit, the ones that take the 'hardest' hit are the ones that trained specifically for that industry. And Engineers do just that.
Aerospace engineering takes periodic hits all the time. Even wonder what happens to people in the industry? It's not exactly an up-and-coming field. People who have the experience and manage to hold on to their jobs during the downturns are lucky. Those that accumulate, say, 10 years of experience and then sadly lose their jobs... what do they do? Wait around till the industry returns? Fat chance of that happening in a predicable fashion.
Nuclear engineering. There are 'n' number of people working in this industry. It's a non-growth industry. After Fukushima, this field became extremely unpopular, and many people lost their jobs. Let's follow that thought to completion - many people - mostly engineers - lost their jobs permanently. So now, after 4-5 years of education and highly specific nuclear-engineering training and experience, these people are left without a job and without any foreseeable job prospects. What a sham. I sound disappointed because some part of me was convinced when my University implied that after I get my degree, I'll be employed in my field for as long as I was going to work. What an utter lie. These lies are especially true for highly specific areas of expertise. Nuclear engineering is not an easy program to get into, nor is it an easy program to complete.
Electrical Engineering: Let's take this broad field as an example. People that get a job in a utility company after graduating end up staying in the field of utility and power transmission all their lives - if they don't get laid off. Can they transition into another area, like say, Oil and Gas? The truth is NO they can't. If a person with 6 years of Utility and Power transmission experience applies to the Oil and Gas industry, they will be rejected due to lack of relevant experience. I tried to make a transition from the Municipal industry to the Power transmission industry. 3 interviews later, I gave up. Despite their 'need' for people and my extensive knowledge and experience in the relevant field of Industrial applications, they did not want me. And that was during a boom. There is no way, NO WAY people can make a transition from say Oil and Gas to say Municipal during an economic downturn. I used to listen to my boss' conversations when they screened applicants. Utterly stupid things like this were said, "Although we're working our staff to the bone and we have the budget to get a couple more guys on the team to meet these deadlines, all the applicants are from the Oil and Gas sector. I don't want to hire them and then have to lay them off in 2 years." What a joke. They overworked their employees and didn't hire enough personnel because they included "Overtime Exempt" clauses into the contract. That's it. The bottom line is sweeter with one less employee on payroll. And for the guys working themselves to death, there's the Employee Assistance Program with psychologists to help you 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. So fuck off.
Anyway, my message is this: There are many, many, many other industries that are far more stable and versatile than engineering for the amount of effort that goes into becoming and engineer and for the luck that is needed to stay active as a practicing engineer. The medical industry is always flourishing. HR, Accounting, Marketing and BD are ever-versatile: You can piggy-back on any industry and not only save your career, but flourish in it.
If you don't LOVE engineering, don't get into it. If you do get a job after graduating, you are most probably going to lose that job in 5-10 years. Then, if you want to keep working in the field, you will have to move or retrain yourself. Or if you are like me, you will never want to return to the field again because you will be so burnt by it.
How do I have the confidence to say this?
Because if you look at most of the industry collapses in the last 50 years, you'll notice a trend. Although people from all walks of life are affected when an industry takes a hit, the ones that take the 'hardest' hit are the ones that trained specifically for that industry. And Engineers do just that.
Aerospace engineering takes periodic hits all the time. Even wonder what happens to people in the industry? It's not exactly an up-and-coming field. People who have the experience and manage to hold on to their jobs during the downturns are lucky. Those that accumulate, say, 10 years of experience and then sadly lose their jobs... what do they do? Wait around till the industry returns? Fat chance of that happening in a predicable fashion.
Nuclear engineering. There are 'n' number of people working in this industry. It's a non-growth industry. After Fukushima, this field became extremely unpopular, and many people lost their jobs. Let's follow that thought to completion - many people - mostly engineers - lost their jobs permanently. So now, after 4-5 years of education and highly specific nuclear-engineering training and experience, these people are left without a job and without any foreseeable job prospects. What a sham. I sound disappointed because some part of me was convinced when my University implied that after I get my degree, I'll be employed in my field for as long as I was going to work. What an utter lie. These lies are especially true for highly specific areas of expertise. Nuclear engineering is not an easy program to get into, nor is it an easy program to complete.
Electrical Engineering: Let's take this broad field as an example. People that get a job in a utility company after graduating end up staying in the field of utility and power transmission all their lives - if they don't get laid off. Can they transition into another area, like say, Oil and Gas? The truth is NO they can't. If a person with 6 years of Utility and Power transmission experience applies to the Oil and Gas industry, they will be rejected due to lack of relevant experience. I tried to make a transition from the Municipal industry to the Power transmission industry. 3 interviews later, I gave up. Despite their 'need' for people and my extensive knowledge and experience in the relevant field of Industrial applications, they did not want me. And that was during a boom. There is no way, NO WAY people can make a transition from say Oil and Gas to say Municipal during an economic downturn. I used to listen to my boss' conversations when they screened applicants. Utterly stupid things like this were said, "Although we're working our staff to the bone and we have the budget to get a couple more guys on the team to meet these deadlines, all the applicants are from the Oil and Gas sector. I don't want to hire them and then have to lay them off in 2 years." What a joke. They overworked their employees and didn't hire enough personnel because they included "Overtime Exempt" clauses into the contract. That's it. The bottom line is sweeter with one less employee on payroll. And for the guys working themselves to death, there's the Employee Assistance Program with psychologists to help you 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. So fuck off.
Anyway, my message is this: There are many, many, many other industries that are far more stable and versatile than engineering for the amount of effort that goes into becoming and engineer and for the luck that is needed to stay active as a practicing engineer. The medical industry is always flourishing. HR, Accounting, Marketing and BD are ever-versatile: You can piggy-back on any industry and not only save your career, but flourish in it.
If you don't LOVE engineering, don't get into it. If you do get a job after graduating, you are most probably going to lose that job in 5-10 years. Then, if you want to keep working in the field, you will have to move or retrain yourself. Or if you are like me, you will never want to return to the field again because you will be so burnt by it.
Why It's A Big Mistake To Do Free (Unpaid) Overtime
A Purely Financial mistake because: The way the economies of this earth work, it makes perfect holistic sense (from one angle) that companies make workers work extra hard (and by that I mean over 40 hours a week) during economic highs. The trade-off is that it lays off workers during economic lows. The extra time the workers worked, helps accumulate the personal fat that is (expected) to be used during lean times. So if your company - or profession - wants you to work for free after you've completed your 40 hours a week, then they are setting you up for your personal financial ruin. To me there could be nothing more malicious than this. There is a very high chance - nearing the inevitable - that you will be laid off during lean times. By not paying you for your extra efforts fairly, the company is actually conspiring to put you and your family out on the street.
It is a Moral mistake, because you don't take anything for free from your company, yet your company expects to take your irreversible time and precious effort for zero compensation. Some of you are thinking, "It's the price I'm willing to pay to stay employed." Ok, no argument there. Just be aware of the trade-off you are engaging in. It is worthwhile to explore professions or jobs where you are compensated for your time with payment or time-off. I wasn't. I was being swindled by a mega-corporation. And I agreed to it by signing my name on that contract of servitude. Thank the stars it wasn't the equivalent of indentured servitude - which many unfortunate souls are subjected to when they sell their company. Several of my co-workers did not file expense claims in the order of thousands of dollars and I thought that was obtuse. Yet there I was, working 80 hours a week and getting paid for 40, effectively reducing my hourly salary to half. Stupid isn't a strong enough word or descriptive enough word for what I did.
A Personal mistake because - and I can only speak from my experience - I paid for that free time I gave to the company with more than lost income. I paid for it with my health and more important to me - my peace of mind. Overwork and exhaustion made me prone to anxiety and directly caused me to lose sleep and my appetite. I would wake up after 2 hours of sleep in cold sweat thinking of all the unachievable deadlines. Unachievable purely due to logistical reasons. If you throw one person at a three-person job, you won't be able to meet a deadline. Under-delivering is swindling the client. Far too many EPCMs engage in this far too often.
A Professional mistake because you will burn out like I did. If you enjoy your work, don't make this mistake because you'll pay for it with your career. I don't know if I can say I was fortunate that I didn't particularly love my line of work to begin with, so it didn't matter that I permanently burnt out. But if this were a field I was truly passionate about, I would be bitter at the company for taking away something from me that I enjoyed - my work, my means of livelihood.
EPC definition
"Engineering, procurement, and construction management" (EPCM) is a common form of contracting arrangement for very large projects within the infrastructure, mining, resources and energy industries. In an EPCM arrangement, the client selects a head contractor who manages the whole project on behalf of the client. The EPCM contractor coordinates all design, procurement and construction work and ensures that the whole project is completed as required and in time. The EPCM contractor may or may not undertake actual site work.
An EPCM contract is a natural progression for an EPC contractor as, if one is able to do an EPC of a project, then getting a bigger EPCM job is advantageous. It helps to tap the already present competencies while ensuring better control over the project. Also, the value of the project managed through an EPCM contract is far greater than the individual EPC contracts.
Normally, an EPCM contractor completes the basic work such as site surveys, getting clearances from authorities, doing the basic engineering and preparing the site for the subcontractors. Subcontractors are chosen by the EPCM company, but they have an agreement directly with the final customer.
EPCM stands for Engineering, Procurement, Construction Management. This type of contract is different to an EPC Contract in that the Contractor is not directly involved in the construction but is responsible for administering the Construction Contracts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering,_procurement,_and_construction_management
Engineering, procurement, and construction management
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An EPCM contract is a natural progression for an EPC contractor as, if one is able to do an EPC of a project, then getting a bigger EPCM job is advantageous. It helps to tap the already present competencies while ensuring better control over the project. Also, the value of the project managed through an EPCM contract is far greater than the individual EPC contracts.
Normally, an EPCM contractor completes the basic work such as site surveys, getting clearances from authorities, doing the basic engineering and preparing the site for the subcontractors. Subcontractors are chosen by the EPCM company, but they have an agreement directly with the final customer.
EPCM stands for Engineering, Procurement, Construction Management. This type of contract is different to an EPC Contract in that the Contractor is not directly involved in the construction but is responsible for administering the Construction Contracts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering,_procurement,_and_construction_management
Engineering, procurement, and construction management
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Economic Downturns I've Experienced and Witnessed
I got into Engineering school dewy-eyed about the promise of eternal employment and supernatural job satisfaction and fulfillment. That was in 1997.
I participated in the University's Cooperative Education Program that found me 4-months contract work after the completion of each 4-month study semester to get a taste of the employment market. I tasted the joy of making money and being a student who had minimal expenses, I was able to pay for my education and living expenses.
I had no trouble finding work between 1997 and the year 2000. But at the start of the year 2000, reality winked at me. The technological giant Nortel Networks burped. It had acquired too many companies too fast and stock prices started sliding. In 8 months, the share price fell from roughly $125 to $10. I was shocked and thought - like many, many others - that it was a temporary event, and that Nortel would inevitably recover. This giant castle that was built in the clouds couldn't possibly come crashing down. But it did. And many were devastated. My devastation was only emotional and psychological. For others it was financial and professional. My personal banker lost her life savings because she didn't follow her own advice: Greedily, she put all her retirement money in tech stocks. All of it.
Closer to the epicenter, my ex-boss at Nortel who had only worked at Nortel all his working life (for 20+ years) was laid off, along with almost all the employees of Nortel. I doubt he found another job in the same industry, if he did in fact decide to stay in the same city.
That calamity lasted for …. well, the hi-tech industry in Ottawa never recovered, actually. All that work migrated to India and China. All the classmates I graduated with, never had the chance to truly enter the industry because it collapsed before they could even get their first full-time job in it. Disastrous. And this disaster was completely Engineer-specific.
I moved Provinces to Oil & Gas country, but found work in the Municipal world which kept me safe from recessions. I still thought what had happened to me in Ottawa was a one-off, an exception rather than the rule. But I was wrong.
In 2004, round about the time my sibling graduated from his grueling engineering program at a prestigious university, the automotive industry in Ontario collapsed. Tens of thousands of people were without a job. For a second time, the hardest hit was taken by the engineers - because it was an engineer-centered industry. Suddenly I suspected there may be a pattern. People with automotive-specific skills were left utterly stranded. I didn't worry so much about the young and middle-aged people that had a chance to retrain themselves. What about the people nearing retirement, which included a huge baby-boomer population? They couldn't retrain, and they couldn't afford to retire. So what did they do? Move? Work at Walmart?
In 2008 the whole world sort-of collapsed. The souffle built by the lies of Wall Street and the Federal Reserve collapsed. Alberta went through a brief spell of mass unemployment and obscurity. Tens of thousands of people were laid off with no foreseeable hope in sight. But things did pick up eventually. All industries suffered: Housing, Financial and Engineering. Engineering was not immune.
And here we are in 2014, 2015. Oil prices have stayed steadily low for 2 years now. And there is no hope of any recovery in the oil and gas sector in Alberta. Russia predicts this spat of bad oil prices will last at least 7 years. So what do oil and gas industry people do? Retrain? Work at Starbucks for 7 years? Again, the downturn is Engineer-specific. Admin staff can work anywhere. HR can work anywhere. Marketing people can work anywhere. But Engineers are fucked. Proper fucked.
Still want to do engineering?
I participated in the University's Cooperative Education Program that found me 4-months contract work after the completion of each 4-month study semester to get a taste of the employment market. I tasted the joy of making money and being a student who had minimal expenses, I was able to pay for my education and living expenses.
I had no trouble finding work between 1997 and the year 2000. But at the start of the year 2000, reality winked at me. The technological giant Nortel Networks burped. It had acquired too many companies too fast and stock prices started sliding. In 8 months, the share price fell from roughly $125 to $10. I was shocked and thought - like many, many others - that it was a temporary event, and that Nortel would inevitably recover. This giant castle that was built in the clouds couldn't possibly come crashing down. But it did. And many were devastated. My devastation was only emotional and psychological. For others it was financial and professional. My personal banker lost her life savings because she didn't follow her own advice: Greedily, she put all her retirement money in tech stocks. All of it.
Closer to the epicenter, my ex-boss at Nortel who had only worked at Nortel all his working life (for 20+ years) was laid off, along with almost all the employees of Nortel. I doubt he found another job in the same industry, if he did in fact decide to stay in the same city.
That calamity lasted for …. well, the hi-tech industry in Ottawa never recovered, actually. All that work migrated to India and China. All the classmates I graduated with, never had the chance to truly enter the industry because it collapsed before they could even get their first full-time job in it. Disastrous. And this disaster was completely Engineer-specific.
I moved Provinces to Oil & Gas country, but found work in the Municipal world which kept me safe from recessions. I still thought what had happened to me in Ottawa was a one-off, an exception rather than the rule. But I was wrong.
In 2004, round about the time my sibling graduated from his grueling engineering program at a prestigious university, the automotive industry in Ontario collapsed. Tens of thousands of people were without a job. For a second time, the hardest hit was taken by the engineers - because it was an engineer-centered industry. Suddenly I suspected there may be a pattern. People with automotive-specific skills were left utterly stranded. I didn't worry so much about the young and middle-aged people that had a chance to retrain themselves. What about the people nearing retirement, which included a huge baby-boomer population? They couldn't retrain, and they couldn't afford to retire. So what did they do? Move? Work at Walmart?
In 2008 the whole world sort-of collapsed. The souffle built by the lies of Wall Street and the Federal Reserve collapsed. Alberta went through a brief spell of mass unemployment and obscurity. Tens of thousands of people were laid off with no foreseeable hope in sight. But things did pick up eventually. All industries suffered: Housing, Financial and Engineering. Engineering was not immune.
And here we are in 2014, 2015. Oil prices have stayed steadily low for 2 years now. And there is no hope of any recovery in the oil and gas sector in Alberta. Russia predicts this spat of bad oil prices will last at least 7 years. So what do oil and gas industry people do? Retrain? Work at Starbucks for 7 years? Again, the downturn is Engineer-specific. Admin staff can work anywhere. HR can work anywhere. Marketing people can work anywhere. But Engineers are fucked. Proper fucked.
Still want to do engineering?
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Should I Be A Doctor Or An Engineer?
Wanna hear the truth?
Sorry kid, You're Asking The Wrong Question.
If your life has brought you to a place where you are so constrained in your choices that they only two professions you are considering are engineering and medicine, then it might be time to pause for a few moments and ask yourself who is influencing you the most to make this decision? Is it your mother or father? Is it your whole family? 20 years down the road when you figure out your mistake, will they be there to support you? I first realized my mistake towards the end of my education and then for the second time I realized my mistake about mid-way through my life, and guess what? I was all alone. All those people that pushed me in a corner to make my career choice were nowhere to be found. They handed the responsibility for my happiness back into my hands - which is exactly where it belongs.
It is unfortunate that this world constrains bright young adults to such a degree that they have:
(a) completely suppressed their interests and passion
(b) have no choice but to please authority figures around them
(c) aren't given the honest truth about both these professions
Am I being too harsh? I don't think so.
What are your interests?
Engineering and Medicine couldn't be farther apart in what is achieved or performed on a day-to-day basis. As an engineer you build things. As a doctor you heal people. Do you remotely want to do either? What motivated you to ask the first question?I had a friend who said her brother wants to be a doctor because he liked blood. I was taken aback at the sheer stupidity of that sentence. I knew their parents were pushing them to do medicine, so I realized they had to come up with some reason to justify taking pre-med courses. But liking blood? It was absolutely bizarre. Even hematologists don't just like blood... they get into hematology out of their interest to cure blood-related diseases.
I honestly never wanted to build anything. But I became an engineer because I was told it was a sure-shot thing. Sure-shot at job satisfaction, happiness, wealth, respect, growth, social standing. But did I really want to build anything? No. Was I remotely interested in electricity? No. Did I develop an interest towards it as my career progressed? Yes, but not enough to keep me in the field. I love to read stories of Tesla, I love to find out why we ground electrical systems (most electrical engineers will give you the wrong answer to this question), I think it's fabulous that we're living in what I call "Tesla's Age" where everything we do is inherently dependent on electricity (AC). But I am done satiating my curiosity. There is no drive inside me to follow this path any further. I will still gladly help people with the knowledge I've accumulated in the last 13 years. But there is nothing more for me here, and I think that's because I never was truly interested in electrical systems nor was I interested in building anything.
So let's answer your initial questions here.
Should I go into Medicine?
Ask yourself these questions:Do I want to heal people? When I see someone suffering, does my heart fill with empathy? If medicine was an underpaying, under appreciated field, would I still go into it to help people? Would I travel to foreign places to help the underprivileged sick to get better? Would I live out of my pocket to develop a cure? Do I feel that my mind is so sharp that I can really help this planet and vast numbers of people by sharing my intellect and time in developing a cure?
Is there someone sick in your family that would benefit from someone like you in the medical profession?
If you answered yes to any of the questions above or any questions remotely similar, then you should go into medicine. If you don't care about people but want to enter the field for money and status, be prepared to hate your job every single day of your life.
Don't lie to yourself today. I know scores of people that concoct lies in their head to pass the interviews to get into med school. I can guarantee you those lies will end up costing you dearly in the end as you spend countless hours in the hospital doing something you hate, facing patients who do not appreciate you, potentially giving a wrong diagnosis and killing someone or battling colleagues that do not respect your work. Be Honest with yourself TODAY. Be Honest with yourself. You're going to be with one person for the entire journey of life. And every minute of every day you will be left with one person to answer to: YOU.
Should I go into Engineering?
If you've read my other posts you will know that there is no use for math in engineering. So the questions you need to ask yourself are these:Do I like building things? Am I going to be happy collaborating with people from multiple engineering disciplines to coordinate and compromise to build something? Do I want to go to site and inspect what I built? Do I want to learn from my mistakes and build something better? Do I want to test my code to make sure it works properly during run time? Am I comfortable having my design scrutinized by multiple people who will give me feedback on my work? Am I comfortable having tough discussions with management that do not understand all the aspects of design? Am I willing to stand by my cause to build something well? Do I feel like the world could use someone like me to build a better, more robust system?
If any of those questions lights a spark in your heart and brain, Engineering is for you.
But if you don't know what I'm talking about, then spend a few weeks participating in different activities to discover what it is you do like to do and what it is that you have skills for.
I encourage you to broaden your perspective. Scores of intelligent people are regretting their career decisions later in life because they've realized that they were lying to themselves and that journey has to come to an end. It's like judgement day: the only thing is that there's no God to judge you - just yourself. Be Truthful to yourself. No magical path or single career is easier than another. Making it in engineering is just as hard as making it in arts or finance. What will truly help you make it in your field is your interest in that field. When you follow your curiosity, you will naturally develop an acumen for it. Research your area of interest. If you enjoy writing and want to be a journalist, don't go into newspaper journalism; an industry that's coming to an end... be smart. Find out what's up and coming: Get into freelancing or television. Love the movie industry and would do anything to be a part of it? Again, do your fact finding. Be prepared to move to a city with an active movie industry. You can't fulfill your dreams of being a special effects artist if you're stuck in Dayton. Move to Hollywood.
If you fake your interest today, you're going to have to fake it tomorrow and the day after, and the day after that, for years and years. It's hard to stand up to your parents... it might even be impossible. But at the very least, be honest with yourself. If you're forced into engineering school, then keep your eyes open to other interests and opportunities and keep toying with the idea of transitioning into your fields of interest. You might not believe this now, but your parents are going to lose interest in you after a couple of years. So you may as well do something you love for the rest of your life.
Think about it.
The Only Way to Know What You Want To Do With Your Life...
...Is to make mistakes
Not the answer I wanted to give nor the answer you want to hear. But you know it to be true. It's the only answer that makes sense. It's the simplest lesson in life, probably.
Try out a few things in life, and find out which ones you like, which ones you can live with, and which ones you absolutely cannot stand.
The reasons for your choices really don't matter. All that matters is where you are right now.
I don't mind hard work, probably because it keeps me engaged. But I do mind other people speaking for my time after I've made my preferences clear. While clearly being told that I wasn't expected to work more than 40 hours, the project budget was designed for me to work 80 hours a week while getting paid for 40.
I do mind sucking up to people with the expectation to climb the corporate ladder. I do mind acting foolish and subservient to people of questionable respectability. It's not something I enjoy doing and it's something I laugh at when I see others doing it. And therefore, I will never climb that corporate ladder. I saw the results of this first hand. Even though I was on first name basis with the VPs of the company and had frequent conversations about projects and the direction the company was taking, I didn't call them over for supper or compliment them on meaningless rewards they didn't deserve. So my coworker who did the latter got promoted. I was happy for him. Because whatever it is that got you promoted, is what you'll be expected to do more of. If you get promoted for licking stamps, you'll get to lick more stamps. If you get promoted to subservience, you'll be expected to be even more subservient.
I enjoy learning. I found that out when I was enjoying learning things that didn't particularly tickle my fancy. But my mind was growing and that felt good.
I enjoy interacting with people. When I was doing site inspections in Fort McMurray, I enjoyed interacting with the electricians and journeymen. At the office, I enjoyed interacting with everyone. In my professional societies, I enjoy interacting with my fellow learned society members. I enjoy interacting with people I like and don't particularly like. The interaction is enjoyable. The constant verbal and intellectual gymnastics is thoroughly fun.
But I wouldn't have discovered any of these things if I had been surfing the net. I only found out because I went out there and tried out something. I tried out something extremely challenging. And it just turned out that I didn't like certain key aspects of it. But it still pushed me into a corner - a good corner - a corner of self-discovery.
And maybe that's the source of my anger...
This Self Discovery also Shattered my Self-Image.
And that has made me feel rudderless. All this time I had clear direction on my path because I was pursuing the fulfillment of that imaginary person in my head that I thought was me. I have to face the fact that the imaginary person in my head is not the real me. And I have no more direction.
I had imagined myself to be someone who would enjoy being an engineer. I am not that person. I had imagined to be someone who would roll around in my money and derive a huge sense of identity from it. I didn't. I had imagined myself being someone who would enjoy telling a bunch of people what to do and how to do it. I don't. I had imagined myself being someone who would brag to others about my accomplishments. I didn't. I don't. I had imagined myself wanting a big house, a fancy car, and a collector of something expensive. I'm none of these things.
I hadn't imagined how much I needed to learn. I hadn't imagined how horrible I would feel for being manipulated. I hadn't imagined how much I would detest verbal abuse. I hadn't imagined how much I would dislike the pretentiousness of corporate culture. I hadn't imagined how I would feel working on something that I wasn't really interested in. I hadn't imagined what it's like to be working on something that is of little or no significance to me. I hadn't imagined how horrible it would feel to be judged by people in management positions that don't know what they are doing while I am a professional who does know what I'm doing. I didn't realize how small I would feel when I would be turned down for a vacation request during a slow period when I had no work. I did not know these things. BUT I wouldn't have known these things until I walked down that path.
You really can't think your way out of situations. You have to experience it first hand.
Only after my grandfather took me to a cafe did I realize how much I loved coffee. Only when I went on my Europe tour did I realize how hooked I am on traveling. Only when I traveled through India and overheard an Israeli traveler describe personal surrender during travel, did I latch on to the concept and tried it out for myself.
We cannot expect great truths to unfold before us if we're going to be armchair philosophers. We have to interact with the world. For better or for worse.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)