This was a question asked to me by an intern or rather a younger colleague who is interning at the place I work. I provided an off the cuff response, in which I record them here.
Instead, I defined to her the meaning of what’s it meant by successful. Success is a tag given to you by another, never by oneself. Whether or not you are a success is for another to judge. It’s better to find a meaningful career. Something that you would do for free because it makes you happy. Of course, when you do something for free (or too little), you wouldn’t last. But if you can get by and get good over time, you will eventually be rewarded. People will throw at you their hard earned money to get a piece of your work and you be happy too. You will be tagged as being successful. By then, being successful is not that important to you. It’s only important to those who tag you as a success. But if you find that staying successful becomes more important than being happy, then you might be already over the hill. So, beware!
I then asked her what she would be doing as a career, so that I may be able to provide some suggestions on skills that’s might be relevant. Seems she has not got a clue yet, so I offered a generic one. One that’s applicable to any sort of trade one chooses; the skills to learn, which has one uncanny enabler; the ability for one to unlearn, which through my own experience and observation having being in the rat race for over 20 years tend to become more elusive with experience. I said that with a tad of mischief leading to what to be the number one enemy of learning, ego (or the lack of humility). And this will be a topic of another entry.
Leave a Reply