I recently took a road trip with my dad down to North Carolina that included about 20 hours of driving. If my dad doesn’t need to fly, he won’t. So instead of a 50 minute flight down to Charlotte, we saw hundreds of miles of road. Choosing the Navy instead of the Air Force, my dad may have indicated that he may have a slight fear of planes. Although he will never admit it, I will not be shy to point my finger at him for my inherited fear of planes. On planes, I am just like William Shatner in the Twilight Zone Episode titled, “Nightmare at 20,000 feet.” Shatner plays an anxious man whom everyone claims is crazy because he believes there is a gremlin trying to tinker with the engine on the wing of the plane. We wouldn’t want to take any chances with those plane gremlins, so the car is safe enough for us.
We were traveling down to North Carolina because I was fortunate enough to have an interview for a summer internship. I’m currently a junior at Rutgers University and I have started to think a lot more seriously about where I want life to take me. My first order of business was to execute a successful interview, yet I felt a lot of pressure. I knew I would feel very guilty if I failed with my interview because I was putting a little bit of strain on my dad. Although my dad is not one to complain, I knew that the trip required him to take a few days off of work, a little bit of travel expenses, and a lot of driving. I knew he was happy to go with me but I felt like I was gambling with my dad’s time and resources.It was sort of like my first business risk!
Yet, these fears all seemed to go away as I was prepping for my interview. While driving down to North Carolina I would ask him how I should answer questions like “What three words would you use to describe me?” and “What should I say if they ask about my failures?” and “Where do I even begin if they ask me to tell them about myself?”. He could tell there were a lot of ideas, thoughts, and especially fears running through my mind. And he knew exactly how to relieve them.
He said to forget the nonsense. All the things I was asking him were trivial and ultimately unnecessary. My mind should be focused on taking risks, embarking with courage, and striking up confidence. “No” could not be a part of my vocabulary. As he clearly and inspirationally lectured, a formula for success became apparent.
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I was in charge of my own destiny and my destiny is just like a mission. There is no choice but to complete the mission and whether it is deemed a success or failure is not important. For all I know there can be no failures because every failure requires me to grow more independent and more self-reliable. Fear was not necessary to complete my challenge because the interviewer is a person just like me, someone that was once looking for their first job.
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Further along on our journey, I talked to my dad about all the different jobs and things I wanted to accomplish after college. And he responded with some words of shock. He said I should aim to live as simply as possible. Here I am in college, dabbing my feet into a hundred things. Experimenting with different courses, dreaming about my next project, wondering how I can become more experienced. And he says simplicity is so important for success and happiness. Well my mind had been blown.
He was right though. Too often people stretch their time, assets, and passions too thin. Marriages, families, and careers have failed again and again because of selfish pursuits and greed. The greed of adding just one more organization, job, award to a resume. Once you begin to stack job on top of job, it gets harder to say no. He said one day I will wake up and realize I just can’t do it anymore. Then what do I quit?What do I stick with? And from working so much, who have I ignored and shoved to the side?
So my friends follow advice from the guy that used to balance four jobs. He has tried and failed. He has seen that he can handle one job and a family. What can you handle? And what are your limits?
