Life Questions to Think About

Hello, been a long time. Why? Life, as usual.

I read “How Will You Measure Your Life”, an old article from 2010, wrote by Prof. Clayton M. Christensen of HBS.  This article feels so relevant to me since now I’m in my last phase of my study. I wished I had read it when I graduate from my undergrads.

On the last day of his class, Prof. Christensen asked his students to find their answers of these three questions:
1. How can I be sure I will be happy in my career?
2. How can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness?
3. How can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail?

The first question is a classical one. Since career is one thing that will take major slice of your life, it should bring us happiness right? Well, the popular answer nowadays is “Find your passion!” Unfortunately, that suggestion is not so practical. I spend some time after my graduation pivoting with some jobs, yet I still did not feel this passion thingy. I am not saying that it is a waste of time to try finding your passion. I learned many things and now I do have some idea about how I want to lead my life. It was time well spent, yet it is not enough to guarantee your happiness on your career.

The second question for me is interesting in a peculiar way. You see, just recently I stepped –up my relationship with my partner. Well, we already talk about marriage since day one, but now that both of us are at the end of our study we talk about it more concretely.  You know, making plan together, talk about jobs, parents opinion, monthly budgets, car-or-house first, those kinds of stuffs. So this question will fit in quite nicely in our discussion.  

The third question might sound silly, but it is a serious one. There are already some people from my alumni that spend some time behind the bars. I’m quite sure none of them planned to do so when they graduated, and I definitely do not plan to follow their footsteps. Therefore, some conscious decisions have to be made regarding this.

To sum up, the article is very insightful for me. I’m I highly recommend you to block some reading time, since it is quite lengthy, and go read it deeply.  Now excuse me, I have some thinking to do.