How to make career choices? || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)
Question: Sir, after completing B.Tech, should I go for higher studies or a high paying job? How can I decide that?
Speaker: What’s your name?
Listener 1: Sonu Singh, 3rd year B.Tech.
Speaker: After completing B.Tech I do not know that I should go for the job, or for higher studies, or something else. Sonu, usually in life when you are stuck between two or three choices, you will find most of the times that none of the choices are really good for you. So, my question will be that why I am unable to choose between A, B and C. Life says that whenever you are unable to choose between A, B and C; had any of these three been really what your life is looking for, then you would not have been confused. Confusion itself is an indication that these, all three, all five, all eight, are sub-optimal choices.Do you understand what is meant by sub-optimal choices? A sub-optimal choice is that which is not really reaching the maxima. It’s a compromise. First of all, let’s understand what work is because all three questions that you have asked relate to work. Right? What is work?
What is your age today? 21 or 22? You would be working for minimum thirty to forty years. Your total work-life duration will be at least thirty to forty years. Do you see that? That means, particularly till the end of your life except for the last ten years of your life, you would be working. How many hours a day do you sleep? Six hours to eight hours. Right? One or two hours for your other regular physical activities; eating, washing and such other activities. You are left with around fourteen hours. Out of which, how much time do you think one spends working? How much time do you think you spend on working? From one end to another end? End to end means, starting from your home, going to the workplace and coming back to your home. So, how much time do you think you spend working? If you are in NCR, it would be a minimum of twelve hours or it could go to sixteen hours. Because one hour of commuting time either way is the standard. So, two hours you are anyway spending just in commuting. A typical office day stretches to minimum of ten hours, twelve hours is the minimum, it could be fifteen hours, and it could be sixteen hours. So, taking away the sleeping time, you are left with around fifteen hours or so in the day, of which twelve to fifteen hours you are spending in work. Remove the sleeping part, how much of your total waking life you spend on working?
