I had an amazing conversation with my friend the other day, and I hope that he doesn’t mind me writing about it. We were talking about our futures, dream jobs, concerns, all of the things that I normally waste many hours thinking about when I am alone. My friend’s been working for my co-op company for about a year now and is wondering what his next step will be. We’re both wondering what will bring us happiness in the future.
I equate the pursuit of happiness to the pursuit of perfection in the sense that I find both ideals impossible to attain. This isn’t saying that it’s impossible to come close to these abstract concepts, but to pursue absolute perfection or happiness is a bit foolish. Occasional unhappiness is in fact one of the necessary foundations of happiness; after all, how would we know the feelings of happiness if we had nothing to compare them to?
The thing that I fear most in life (besides embarrassing failure of course) is stagnation. The idea of working for a company for thirty years with little to no advancement is frightening to me. It seems that my friend feels the same way. Ever since he was a student, his main goal was to work for my current company, and now he has achieved it. This has been his goal for so long that he now has to search for something new, something that will keep him driven, motivated, and happy. I understand this feeling, since I’m in the same boat with working in Japan. I’ve spent almost my entire college career dreaming of working in Japan, and now I am. So what happens when I return? I haven’t done much planning beyond September 15 2010. I’ll graduate in little over a year, and then things will become incredibly interesting. At this point, I feel as if graduate school (MBA MS Marketing) is the option that I prefer. I just can’t see myself working as an engineer, not even now. My time here has finally confirmed the fact that this is not what I’m meant to do. I truly believe that you have to follow your proverbial heart when it comes to these things, and my heart says it’s time to move on from engineering. That being said, if anything, this job has provided me with more learning opportunities than any of my previous jobs or college courses. I’m absolutely amazed by how much practical knowledge I’ve gained in this short time. Unlike my previous co-ops, there is a continuous schedule for me, all the way until I return to America. If I finish one project, I have all of the necessary tools to move onto the next. I’ve never experienced this level of collective organization or compassion at the hand of any previous group of co-workers.
For nearly 17 years I’ve been some sort of student, and I have no idea what lies beyond that world. I just can’t see myself as a working stiff, so a stiff I’ll not be. Fortunately, I’ve met enough amazing people to convince me that life doesn’t have to become dull and repetitive once the graduation hats fly for the last time. Here I’ve seen that just because the work is the same doesn’t mean that there isn’t something new to be learned or new adventures to be had. The zest for life in the Japanese people is amazing, and I’ll be honest and say that I never expected it.
If anything, this co-op has shown me that the world is not so big; after all, I could be home in 24 hours if I wanted to. It’s also shown me that a language barrier can easily mask the brilliance of a person and how utterly breathtaking it feels when something begins to break down the wall, allowing just a little bit of that brilliance to shine through. It makes me hungry for more, as well as curious about the things that I haven’t bothered to learn about my friends at home.
If it isn’t quite obvious by now, the past few days have been quite reflective. Tomorrow I’ll have been here for two months, and I don’t quite know how to feel about that, but it appears that as long as I have somewhere to go, a new goal to achieve, or something to learn, I’ll have no desire to sleep through the alarm.