undestanding ones place in life (jobs, career, etc.)

[alakazam]

Hi to all. This post isn't aimed at receiving advice, but more so in listening other voices, and experiences, to help me better navigate this choice (yes, we're talking about jobs, careers, and maybe something else).

But first, let me take a self...., ahmm, but first a little bit of context. I’m an Italian med student in his fifth year of this long ride. Next year will be my last. This year in particular has been a little bit over the place mentally (“metaphorically”). I chose medicine without thought, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, what I liked, etc. Along the years of med school I started experimenting, pursuing different interests in my free time (from coding to writing, content creation, etc.) Although I have doubts about medicine, and if I will be able to find in it a niche for me (in a career that seems suited for SJs - but that should not stop me). At the same time, luckily?, there aren't other options, right now, that I can think of. I mean, I like various subjects, but when i think about a career in them idk if I would pursue it.

Leaving the specific subject aside, I've noticed (maybe) some traits that i enjoy. As I said, I experimented with writing, and started a youtube channel a couple of years ago, posting what i wrote, and also comedy stuff i wrote or skits (i enjoy comedy). This made me learn that I enjoy the freedom it gives me, to be able to create something, the independence to do so, to able to take my time and work "creatively" (wathever that means).
Also, one of the things that made this year so uncertain, is the idea of starting a job and not knowing if I will like it. Spending 6 years in university shields you from experiencing different jobs, to see what you like. And maybe it is this that scares me. Feeling like you are headed towards a pit (sooner or later). This isn't necessarly bad, i like discovering, even if i know it's something that probably isn't for me.

Writing/creating content is a little bit of a safety net, something I like having on the side, but It probably will never be able to sustain me (nevertheless i enjoy it and will continue doing it).

There are different elements of medicine that rub me the wrong way: a lot of pressure (a lot of superficial stuff to do at the same time, that takes time and energy); repetitive and focused on what to do, even if you don't know the why; not the best working environment (collegues, etc.). I'm also aware that this isn't specific to this field.

So I was trying to find some specialties that had less of what i disliked, and more of what i liked. In italy we have medical law as a specialty, in which you help with penal stuff, but also insurance stuff, and other things (this subject made me discover that law is pretty interesting). Or maybe public medicine, in which I don't have to talk all day with other doctors, nurses, patients, parent of said patients, but have the time to sit back, think, and do my work.

But, on the other hand, this seems to be finding a compromise in something I don't inherently enjoy doing. Maybe it's naive thinking, but i would like to spend my life working on, and thinking about, something i value. There is an intrinsic, "mistical", feeling of doing something that "clicks with who you are". And I sometimes find this when I write for example, it seems like I was supposed to do it, but that's probably an exageration, and maybe a misleading feeling/hope.

For the later reasons, I was thinking of going all in, and try wathever I most found cool in medicine. If I'm here, why not go 100%? That's why i was thinking of pursuing surgery, vascular surgery in particular. It has lots of stuff that i don't like (high stakes, high pressure), but also things that are interesting (using anatomy knowledge and pathology knowledge, and your skills to try to cure/alleviate. Also, working with your hands doing intensive work brings me in a flow state, like when your playing a competitive match in a videogame, in which you have to use map knowledge, mechanical capacity, positioning, etc., to win a game).

I know I'm rambling. This is something I have to understand by myself, but would like to hear about others similar struggles, and life experiences, what they observed, and so on.

Thank you for your time, patience, and trust you gave me in reading all this =).

 

[EndogenousRebel]

You want something you can be passionate about, as do most people.

Most people will endure a lot if the reason they are tolerating stress is for an outcome they are passionate about.

Somethings you don't really know about how you invest your time, is that you don't know if your time is worth it really unless it's hindsight. In retrospect, that experience might be valuable to your regardless of what you do. Live and learn.

There is little value in ruminating about things you've already thought about, if this is illicited by an emotional response you have, ask yourself why you are having that response.

In the case of your interest, you seem to have a wide variety of them. They don't all align with your chosen profession, only align incidentally if at all.

For example you could be a reporter writer for health news or spend a lot of time writing books, as anybody with time to spare is free to do.

I'd say an easy catch all solution is a website that holds all your big projects as portfolio, along with documentation of you creating these project to pad out the content.

I'm not sure about Italy, but most businesses start as a part-time job. It's not that often where someone can hit the ground running with even if they have competitive expertise the market, because guess what, it's competitive, and people willing to pay you to do the fun things you like doing, would probably rather pay to do it themselves.

Worse case scenario, in 30 years you have a list of projects you never finished, and a paper trail as to why. Most people don't spend a single second trying to cultivate their own growth. An acceptable reality.

 

[birdsnestfern]

With all the knowledge you've acquired, could you tell yourself you'll try the traditional doctor field for five years and if you don't like it, pursue other areas? At least then, you would have applied what you know, and even if you don't love it, put it to use for the experience of it.
It can take a lifetime to find that 'mystical' side is why I'm saying that. Plus, you can apply the mystical side to any job.
The aspect of healing using nature is very interesting to me, but I used the 'accountant' career to earn a living and had many other interests.
I just know I couldn't stand the politics in most hospitals. What about chiropractor, Holistic Healing with herbs and supplements, or healing cancer with reishi and shiitake mushrooms and juicing. Or, physical therapy using equipment and massage, or healing bones with comfrey ointments instead of casts. Idk. I took anatomy and therapeutic massage and I liked and had an affinity for healing that way through my hands, but I didn't feel confident enough to do it for a living, so I did more technical jobs like electronic QA and inspections and nasa standards and tax accounting, and govt accounting. I found that I liked working in a larger corporation so I could blend in, and be on a team, as my ability to fill the emotional needs of others was not so good. So for me, I knew I had to work with 'things' like plants, numbers, data, electronics, charts, computers, animals, massage where the persons eyes are closed and you don't need to talk a lot, art, or simply on the phone instead of face to face so much. I was good at problem solving on the spot on the phone and good at calming people down or customer service. I can soothe, but I get flustered if its face to face. I've tried many different jobs. I did some accounting for teachers in college, data entry for school insurance orders, data entry for mutual fund and bond sales, H&R block tax accounting for 4 years, catalog sales and customer service for 5 years for 15 different catalogs simultaneously, govt accounting for 20 years, plant nursery work and patio delivery for a summer, volunteer masseuse for children at a stanford hospital, child care at stanford, parks and recreation, summer jobs in construction, electronics assembly, etc. I use the spiritual healer part of me privately and behind the scenes and do the day job to earn a living, that was my strategy anyway.

I found I could NOT do blood lab work for two reasons, I was a germaphobe and blood makes me faint to see it.
I get high anxiety around coughing people too, to the point of wanting to wear those shield masks, I haven't set foot in a hospital or doctor office since covid began pretty much. So, the fear of being exposed to others scares me too much. I would much rather have a clean desk job than work with people. And, the politics inside most hospitals are awful. So, you'd probably want a private practice so you can avoid that environment. I do know there are doctors that work for the state to help determine eligibility for disability for example, where you only need a zoom app and a computer and don't have to interact with people, except just have certain questions you ask and make diagnosis long distance.

The way I did some of this was through career tests (I took at least three types of career tests) and through asking myself to dream reveal what I wanted to do before I went to sleep. Just put a pad of paper by your bed and a pen and write down and think of questions you want your dream self to answer, and look at it before you go to sleep each night. Eventually your dreams will tell you a lot. But so will life experiences.

 

[alakazam]

You want something you can be passionate about, as do most people.

Most people will endure a lot if the reason they are tolerating stress is for an outcome they are passionate about.

Somethings you don't really know about how you invest your time, is that you don't know if your time is worth it really unless it's hindsight. In retrospect, that experience might be valuable to your regardless of what you do. Live and learn.

There is little value in ruminating about things you've already thought about, if this is illicited by an emotional response you have, ask yourself why you are having that response.

In the case of your interest, you seem to have a wide variety of them. They don't all align with your chosen profession, only align incidentally if at all.

For example you could be a reporter writer for health news or spend a lot of time writing books, as anybody with time to spare is free to do.

I'd say an easy catch all solution is a website that holds all your big projects as portfolio, along with documentation of you creating these project to pad out the content.

I'm not sure about Italy, but most businesses start as a part-time job. It's not that often where someone can hit the ground running with even if they have competitive expertise the market, because guess what, it's competitive, and people willing to pay you to do the fun things you like doing, would probably rather pay to do it themselves.

Worse case scenario, in 30 years you have a list of projects you never finished, and a paper trail as to why. Most people don't spend a single second trying to cultivate their own growth. An acceptable reality.

Thank you for the reply.

"There is little value in ruminating about things you've already thought about, if this is illicited by an emotional response you have, ask yourself why you are having that response." This Is something i'm thinking about frequently: Is It Just the Need tò do something i like, or Is there something else? As of right know i probably Will try and pursue this career (medicine), to at least give It a short and then regroup afterwards.

 

[Cognisant]

I have never regretted earning more money.

It's all well and good for boomers to say money isn't everything, because they have it, however you have a lot of debt that you need to pay off and if you don't own your own home you'll want to get that sorted ASAP too.

See here's how it goes, you make money, you put that money into investments (like education and real estate) and over time your money grows and you're making more money as you progress in your career. All going well year on year your net wealth will increase by say 5% based on how much you save and invest, that's not a lot at first but it's an exponential growth curve, keep earning, keep investing, and you'll be MUCH better off later in life.

When you're financially established then you can think about discovering yourself and whether or not this is what you want to be doing, until then seize every opportunity with both hands and work your ass off. You want to reach that end goal as soon as possible, not spend twenty years dithering then realize you're kinda fucked because you've got a lot of catching up to do and by the time you do you'll be at death's door.

 

[alakazam]

I have never regretted earning more money.

It's all well and good for boomers to say money isn't everything, because they have it, however you have a lot of debt that you need to pay off and if you don't own your own home you'll want to get that sorted ASAP too.

See here's how it goes, you make money, you put that money into investments (like education and real estate) and over time your money grows and you're making more money as you progress in your career. All going well year on year your net wealth will increase by say 5% based on how much you save and invest, that's not a lot at first but it's an exponential growth curve, keep earning, keep investing, and you'll be MUCH better off later in life.

When you're financially established then you can think about discovering yourself and whether or not this is what you want to be doing, until then seize every opportunity with both hands and work your ass off. You want to reach that end goal as soon as possible, not spend twenty years dithering then realize you're kinda fucked because you've got a lot of catching up to do and by the time you do you'll be at death's door.

Here in italy Doctors earnings aren’t as high as the US or Australia. A salaried doctor earns about 2600-3000k a month in the beggining and circa 3500 after 20years (I don’t remember the number correctly) of working in the public system. Yes, there is private practice but i’m not interested in specialties in which there is more of it, like ENT, ortho, ophth, ecc.

For Italian standards it isn’t bad, but as a surgeon if you count how much you earn for how many hours then it isn’t obvious it’s the best choice.

For these reasons I was thinking of going to Switzerland or maybe Ireland (I was born there), because salaries are 2-3x higher. But obv it isn’t an easy thing to do, especially for vascular surgery that is a small field, so not many spots needed compared to gen surgery or maybe ortho, for example

 

[EndogenousRebel]

You want something you can be passionate about, as do most people.

Most people will endure a lot if the reason they are tolerating stress is for an outcome they are passionate about.

Somethings you don't really know about how you invest your time, is that you don't know if your time is worth it really unless it's hindsight. In retrospect, that experience might be valuable to your regardless of what you do. Live and learn.

There is little value in ruminating about things you've already thought about, if this is illicited by an emotional response you have, ask yourself why you are having that response.

In the case of your interest, you seem to have a wide variety of them. They don't all align with your chosen profession, only align incidentally if at all.

For example you could be a reporter writer for health news or spend a lot of time writing books, as anybody with time to spare is free to do.

I'd say an easy catch all solution is a website that holds all your big projects as portfolio, along with documentation of you creating these project to pad out the content.

I'm not sure about Italy, but most businesses start as a part-time job. It's not that often where someone can hit the ground running with even if they have competitive expertise the market, because guess what, it's competitive, and people willing to pay you to do the fun things you like doing, would probably rather pay to do it themselves.

Worse case scenario, in 30 years you have a list of projects you never finished, and a paper trail as to why. Most people don't spend a single second trying to cultivate their own growth. An acceptable reality.

Thank you for the reply.

"There is little value in ruminating about things you've already thought about, if this is illicited by an emotional response you have, ask yourself why you are having that response." This Is something i'm thinking about frequently: Is It Just the Need tò do something i like, or Is there something else? As of right know i probably Will try and pursue this career (medicine), to at least give It a short and then regroup afterwards.

When I write that I am basically cautioning you when you think to yourself.

If you write a big pros and cons list, that's all well and good, you are trying to logically see how you will benefit. What I'm saying is that instead of spending a lot of time questioning these reasons you come up with, you should question the emotions that are generating this reasoning.

I'm saying, question the motivation instead of the rationalizations.

You only feel one way for a specific reason, but that one feeling can make you come up with 1000 different reasons, if that makes sense?

If you're motivated by fear for your immediate future, and you have a good reason to be, this is why you prepared with medical school, just finish up and start practicing.

If you're motivated by self-actualization, who's to say that being in medicine won't lead to something like that?

What are your other options? become a monk and move to Tibet? That can wait, get valuable skill of helping people, at the very least so that you get the experience you spent so many years in school, to even have the privilege to attain.

you got it made in the shade pal

 

[LOGICZOMBIE]

in a career that seems suited for SJs

no kidding

 

[LOGICZOMBIE]

Maybe it's naive thinking, but i would like to spend my life working on, and thinking about, something i value.

DATA SCIENTIST

ACTUARY

ECONOMIST

even if these are not necessarily careers you want to pursue

they make great hobbies

 

[ZenRaiden]

I am 35 still don't know what exactly I might be doing in near future, but I am also of opinion that careers that box you in don't necessarily have to be only viable option in life.
Do you enjoy the fact you are in a career?

I basically narrowed it down to having freedom, independence to make my own decisions out side of someone elses influence.

Having decent money. Which currently don't have yet.

Having lots of free time. I think I am not psychologically built from 9 to 5 grind.

 

[dr froyd]

i too was worried during studies whether im locking myself into some stuff i won't end up enjoying, and did random stuff besides my main focus area to try to diversify

i ended up going 100% into my main studies eventually, and glad i did. You don't wanna do some half-assed stuff; having mastery in something and facing interesting challenges in it is a very good feeling - especially if that mastery is hard to attain (like studying for 6 years)

 

[alakazam]

i too was worried during studies whether im locking myself into some stuff i won't end up enjoying, and did random stuff besides my main focus area to try to diversify

i ended up going 100% into my main studies eventually, and glad i did. You don't wanna do some half-assed stuff; having mastery in something and facing interesting challenges in it is a very good feeling - especially if that mastery is hard to attain (like studying for 6 years)

may I ask what do you do?
did you enjoy what you were studying?

 

[dr froyd]

i too was worried during studies whether im locking myself into some stuff i won't end up enjoying, and did random stuff besides my main focus area to try to diversify

i ended up going 100% into my main studies eventually, and glad i did. You don't wanna do some half-assed stuff; having mastery in something and facing interesting challenges in it is a very good feeling - especially if that mastery is hard to attain (like studying for 6 years)

may I ask what do you do?
did you enjoy what you were studying?

i do quantitative trading with financial instruments. i studied math and computer science.

i didn't really enjoy studying it, i just thought it would turn out to something interesting eventually. Using the skills in real life was a completely different experience, so im super glad i slugged through it

 

[ZenRaiden]

Using the skills in real life was a completely different experience

This is really what I see all the damn time.

 

[PassingWords]

Sounds like you've got things figured out pretty well. Med for money, writing for fun.

And if you're in your fifth year studying, does that mean you're somewhere in your mid twenties? If so, you've still got some time to mess up and readjust paths. Sounds like you could be getting cold feet, which is common whenever someone is on the verge of a big commitment. If you've already poured lots of time and effort into it, stick it out for at least another five years. The wall of anxiety is thick and high, but there may be treasures on the other side.

 

[alakazam]

Sounds like you've got things figured out pretty well. Med for money, writing for fun.

And if you're in your fifth year studying, does that mean you're somewhere in your mid twenties? If so, you've still got some time to mess up and readjust paths. Sounds like you could be getting cold feet, which is common whenever someone is on the verge of a big commitment. If you've already poured lots of time and effort into it, stick it out for at least another five years. The wall of anxiety is thick and high, but there may be treasures on the other side.

That and other things probably. The fact of starting to work, and especially the responsibilities in entails, especially for a doctor. I don’t like having responsibility for what I do (that’s why I like writing, and other “creative” endeavors, because there is no stake in it, you are accountable for yourself), but obv that’s part of growing up. Also the idea of doing something I don’t like. I tend to be a very 100% or 0% kind of guy, so the idea of doing something just to make money is a bit scary, but most people do. That is why I was thinking surgery, but the lifestyle isn’t all that good, and I’m scared I won’t be able to harvest my other interest and find myself stuck. I know that this is all front loaded anxiousness, but still. I

 

[ZenRaiden]

Can I ask you what drives the bottom line for choosing a profession?
That is what factors the most?

 

[dr froyd]

if you think you can become a good doctor/surgeon who saves lives and stuff, please don't tell me you're gonna try to become a goddamn youtuber instead Lol

look you gotta think about the endgame here - when you look at where you are 5-10 years from now, what would you find most meaning in. Telling people: 1) i am an accomplished surgeon, or 2) i make videos on youtube - i make $40 per day from ad revenue

 

[fractalwalrus]

I am 35 still don't know what exactly I might be doing in near future, but I am also of opinion that careers that box you in don't necessarily have to be only viable option in life.
Do you enjoy the fact you are in a career?

I basically narrowed it down to having freedom, independence to make my own decisions out side of someone elses influence.

Having decent money. Which currently don't have yet.

Having lots of free time. I think I am not psychologically built from 9 to 5 grind.

If you're creative, open-source software minded, and willing and interested in learning a flurry of new skills from 3d modeling to programming, then game design is a possible outlet using the Godot engine and alternative platforms to Steam if you seek subsistence income as an Indie dev. You could get your message out there as well if that is what you desire.

 

[LOGICZOMBIE]

game design

 

[fractalwalrus]

game design

Precisely. Both pieces of software take time to learn, but if you gain a degree of competency you can create a form of art that can be used to provoke thought in people who may otherwise not be exposed to such thought-provocations. Reading was much more niche than gaming, and now gaming is so centralized that it is highly unlikely that they will be producing any messages that "rock the boat of thought."