I’ll never forget the moment when I read the Email. A company had offered me a job and to pay for me to get my master’s degree. Before the emotion of happiness could register, I felt a tear come down my face as I choked out a sigh of disbelief. I sacrificed everything to achieve this goal. I gave up a social life. I woke up at 5:30 am every day. I devoted myself to academic achievement. “This”, I thought to myself, “is the moment I was after”.
I’ll also never forget the moment I called the company to decline the offer.
People can tell you how to succeed. But they can’t tell you how to cope when you achieve a goal and find a void where you were expecting to find fulfillment. The day I rejected that offer, I felt haunted by a question. Namely, how could something that I wanted so badly become undesirable once it was actually mine?
***
Where I grew up, “success” had a distinct image: a big house, a nice car, a close family and three attractive kids. The people I went to high school with came from wealthy families and were talented and ambitious. I was... Well, I am not sure what I was, but it wasn’t those things. I wasn’t motivated, I didn’t live in a big house, and my parents were divorced. My circumstances made me feel inferior to my peers. It was during this period that I developed a fear of not being successful.
When I went to college I brought those insecurities with me. I majored in Accounting because of the good salary, career progression, and stable employment. I hoped that achievement in this field would cure my fear of never having or being enough. For the first time in my life, I found something that I was good at. I went from getting a 3.0 GPA in high school to never receiving anything less than an A in any of my ten Accounting courses. To improve my chances of getting a job, I joined the Accounting club. The stated goal of the club was to help club members get a job at a public accounting firm. This created a culture in which club members that planned to work at Big Firms were granted prestige and spoke about in hushed tones of reverence. Hoping to earn my peers’ respect, I made a goal to work for one of the biggest firms. But I didn’t just want an opportunity. I wanted an opportunity so good that it would amaze anyone who heard about it. So for the next four years, I made each action based on whether or not it would get me that prestigious public accounting job.
When I finally received the offer from a firm to hire me and pay for my master's degree, I was certain that I would accept. This was everything that I had been working for. I was happy. But after the initial happiness, I began to wonder if this opportunity was truly what I wanted. I don’t mean the bullshitty kind of want. You know, the kind where you want it just because people nod their head with obnoxious affirmation when you tell them about your plans. Or was this the kind of want that came from a place of sincere desire?
I forced myself to honestly examine the path I took to achieve my goal. I had told myself and others that I wanted this job because it would be good for my future. The job was safe and practical. It was lucrative and distinguished. Everyone I knew told me that it was a great opportunity. But I realized that I had been lying to myself. I didn’t want this job because it interested me. I wanted this job because it might suppress the feeling of perpetual inadequacy. Rather than looking for a job doing something that I liked, I looked for a safe job because I didn’t trust that I was talented enough to do anything else.
After taking some time to reflect, I realized how I had earned an opportunity just to end up declining it. Every choice that I made to achieve my goal stemmed from a place of insecurity. If I didn't start actively defining what I wanted for my life, I’d be permitting others to create my identity with their expectations. I knew this process of changing myself to please others would one day result in me not being able to recognize my reflection in the mirror. I decided that I would end the cycle with this decision. I was tired of letting fear prevent me from finding things that I could enjoy. My final decision to not work at an accounting firm or pursue my master’s degree was more than a career choice: It was a moment where I ruled over self-doubt.
I don’t look back on the effort I gave to achieve that goal with any regret. In the process of pursuing - and achieving - my aim, I learned something important about myself: I am intelligent and capable. It was this internal validation that I wanted all along. The experience was not meaningless because it helped me to form a new definition of personal accomplishment. I no longer think of success in terms of the acquisition of material items. I now measure success by how much time I spend doing the things that I enjoy. Now I have a new question to answer: If I was able to earn a prestigious opportunity in a career field that I’m not interested in, what am I capable of accomplishing while doing something I love?
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