I was talking with a friend about her career goals the other day. She mentioned one particular path she planned to take (I don’t remember what it was) and then added: “…because I didn’t get the MBA for nothing.”
Anyone else hear it? Her past controlling her future?
Well, Carol, that’s natural, you say. We all have plans and goals and we intend to follow through on them! Your friend probably put a lot of blood, sweat, tears, time, and money into that MBA!
OK but I have a question. What would you let go of if you weren’t worried about…
- How much time you spent on it?
- How much money you spent on it?
- How much energy you put into it?
- What people would think?
What if you were set free of the responsibility to “use” your degree (or your wardrobe, or your car, or your job, or your good china, etc.)? (Let’s just agree for the rest of this post that “MBA” is shorthand for whatever ball and chain you’ve got hitched to your ankle.)
Redefining “nothing”
What if the real reason we do a thing has very little to do with what we thought the end goal was?
Taking the MBA example…what if the real “reason” you got the MBA (which you obviously did not know at the time) was to meet a particular new friend? Or learn that you don’t want to be an executive? Or just to show yourself that you could do it?
Would the money (time, etc.) have been wasted?
Well, is the money already spent anyway? I can hear my MBA friend saying, “Well, the money sure has been committed. I’ll be paying off those loans for years to come!”
So let me translate: “I’m going to keep making decisions about my life that don’t totally thrill me because I owe all this money due to past decisions that I’m determined to make pay off in the future.”
What if your MBA will pay off, but just on a completely different path than you expected? By clinging to your old idea of what the MBA was for, you may be passing up opportunities that are much more free, joyful and even lucrative!
That was then. Now is now.
Starting from right now, what idea about how to proceed with your life inspires you with joy? If the answer doesn’t seem to follow from your MBA, are you going to turn your back on it?
You may never know how the MBA really helped you. Or even if you did it for “nothing.” But are you going to drag that MBA around with you wherever you go, no matter what?
I’ve got nothing against MBAs, if the MBA-getting people are inspired and – truly – served by them.
I say: Let’s stop using our precious current resources (time, money, energy, life-force, etc.) to justify anything that we did or decided in the past which no longer contributes to our most excellent vision of the future.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
This is such a compelling post; it is easy to look back and reevaluate and disect every decision we made, every action we took, and replay what we would do differently if we had the chance. But you know what, if you didn’t have your past, you wouldn’t have your future either.
Anymore I really try to live life in the present, not mourning the past, worrying about the future (too much), or anticipating trouble (easier said than done). Not that I don’t have goals, but nothing is so definitive that my goals are not flexibile enough to change as the wind blows.
Thanks for making me think Carol!
Beth, I completely agree with you! The past is what got us here, and if we want something different now then we wanted in the past, so be it. I love your attitude about living in the present, I’m working on that one myself!