“[College] might be one of last chances to reflect deeply on that question. If you think that you’ll have more time and energy to reflect later, you’re nuts, because life only gets more demanding: You take on a mortgage; you’re working 70 hours a week; you have a spouse and children.”
— Clayton M. Christensen,
The quote above is a really important wake-up call. Because college IS probably the last chance I have to really reflect on my purpose in life. When I’m idealistic and inexperienced enough to be unmarred by real life obstacles that bog us down. When I’m still relatively unspecialized and not yet shafted into a sliver of a million directions I could have gone. I strongly believe in the fact that a purpose is something you have to devote tangible energy and time to, it’s not in its full, perfect, complete form already, ready to be pulled from your subconscious. If I don’t get out my compass, my ship is probably not going to sail towards that sliver of the sea that’s right for me.
People ask me why I want to go to law school, and the answer is always: “it’s been the plan since I was five years old” But that’s not good enough at all, not for anyone listening and not for myself. I can’t base a decision on a whim whipped up by 5 years of experience. If it’s going to be right for me, it’s going to have to withstand so many more years, more experiences, more thoughts. Why do I want to go where I want to go? I’ve never quite answered this because I thought the answer stopped at knowing where the path is, not why I’m on it. But it’s time to start asking.
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Thursday, August 19, 2010
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