Connect the dots - submit to life’s entropy

A common theme in Grace Hopper Conference was around career choice: What should I do next? Where should I go? Who do I want to become? When we choose one path, other pathes in life close on us. It is called opportunity cost in economics. What if we make the wrong choice, wrong turn? What about we miss the best opportunity of our life? A life runined? The anxieties are eating us alive. I found we cannot plan life, not really. We have to submit to what life gives us. Life has entropy, or randomness built into its foundimental fabric, beyond our rationale mind’s understanding. We have to submit to this entropy, even embrace it. All the paths in life have only one purpose, as stages for us to perform, experience and grow, to deliver the best show, on the stage we are given. Do we get to pick the stage? To some extent, yes. We are conciouse beings. We can influence our next stage: To make a better career choice, I found two principles are very useful: 1. Optimize for growth and learning. Money, fame and happiness are all just side effect of our growth. Pick an environment that we have to learn and get better everyday. One rule of thumb is we are the average of the six people working close with us. So choose the six people wisely. 2. Accept change, submit to life’s randomnesse, have a growth mindset, believe that life has a higher plan, everything happens with a reason. Very importantly, don’t run away from choices. That is the worst of all choices - not make a choice. Pick a road less traveled, make this life worthwhile, only to ourselves. “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” ~ Steve Jobs