I'm back to packing again. Tomorrow I leave Ann Arbor and close another chapter in my MBA trek. It's the final chapter as now I have to head into the real world. Scary stuff.
As I look back over the last two years, a lot of crap happened. Lately though, I'm thinking about how this process has really molded my perspective. First, I need to acknowledge that I'm blessed that I was able to have the financial ability and understanding of everyone around me to partake in my grand adventures.
My dad has been really good at reminding me to live life without regret. Hell, he was the one that told me to buy the S2000 because once I have kids it'll all be over. So it was with that same mentality I decided to go abroad to try to fulfill my dream of living and working in Europe. It was a gamble but I never wanted to look back on my life and think to myself, why didn't I do that?
I had a handful of offers for full-time employment. Two offers were very safe options. Good pay, good visibility, decent geographic locations and an opportunity to be within an MBA leadership development program. I didn't go with those and ended up choosing an international finance rotation program for a cosmetics company. Sometimes I wonder if I made the right decision. 1) I didn't really want to be back in Finance 2) I don't really know where the company will send me after my 2 year rotation is over in NYC and 3) cosmetics?!? but deep down inside I knew this was what I wanted to do. I wanted to work abroad and utilize the cultural knowledge imparted on me while in business school.
Life is full of the expected. People always tell you what you should do and what you shouldn't do. Go to college, make a stable living, have a family and live your life accordingly. But, why do the things that everyone expects you to do? We all hate labels but we have an overwhelming urge to normalize ourselves. Risk management is so critical in our daily lives that it clouds our thinking. The Chairman of AIG visited our class the other day and his parting words to us were to do something you're passionate about or have fun doing. Do something that pushes your boundaries and makes you feel alive." With risk management, we dilute the passion and substitute it for the comfort of stability. I applaud all those people who pursued their passion. Mine was history and I never could push myself to be a history professor. It just wasn't the safe choice.
But, our passion, our gambles, our failures and our successes comes through our pursuit to push ourselves beyond our boundaries and that is how we learn and develop. Hmm....I feel like I just wrote a response for my previous post. I might be bi-polar.
No comments:
Post a Comment