Anyone want a PE offer just to show off
So I'm entering my 2nd year as a TMT M&A analyst and have a PE offer. I'm not really interested in the job i'm doing now or that one, in fact I don't know what I want to do. I don't like the day to day but I like saying what I'm doing when I'm at a bar or at a party. I'm just being honest. I know people work hard to get here and I guess I do day to day but also my parents just paid for good tutors and managed to get in to decent schools so I kind of just cruised here
Sounds tough man, get well soon
As crazy as that sound, yes I understand to an extent. However, I noticed that while getting older I started to care less - I honestly don't think it's "cool" anymore to work in finance (apart from the money that allows me to have a good life). And your value is not limited by what other people think of you. Best of luck in your personal dvlp man :)
Go to therapy and deal with the underlying self esteem issues and insecurities that are manifesting themselves here. Continuing to kick the can down the road on facing those insecurities and other issues will just delay the inevitable fact that one day it will be impossible to hide / overcompensate for them more without seriously damaging your life and relationships and you will continue to be unhappy all the while.
You think so? On the surface things look pretty good, I'm in good shape, make a good amount, dress well. But I don't really know who I am. Not sure how a therapist can help with that.
Dude that is exactly what therapy is for… go unpack some of your ostensibly well functioning and perfect life and see what you discover. If you’re benchmarking your sense of self worth to a job and validation from other people, you likely have some much deeper self esteem issues that are probably manifesting themselves in other parts of your life as well. Might not seem severe, but in my experience these things tend to just intensify and compound over time.
This was me for a long time before I finally went to therapy and actually got help. Life is better when you’re less burdened by baggage and understand why you want what you want.
What's wrong with benchmarking your self worth to achievement ? Not necessarily related just to work but in any field of human endeavor - athletic, family / friends / social, volunteering etc. If not that where is it supposed to come from? Purely from existing ?
Let's look at the inverse of your statement: If your sense of self worth is a product of professional achievement, should someone without professional achievement feel like their life has no worth? Should the vast majority of Americans who do not have pedigree or prestige believe that they are inherently inferior?
My point was exclusively and specifically tied to professional achievement and comparison against others. When you referenced, "family, friends, social, volunteering" as being the basis of self worth - I completely agree with you and it's worth noting that these aspects are (usually) not products of relative comparison or competition. Having a more holistic sense of who you are and being proud of yourself for being a good family member or friend is far emotionally healthier than benchmarking your sense of self worth largely off of what job you have or how you exist or compete relative to other people.
I'll explain it very rationally why this is a terrible, horrible, idea - from a purely self-interest perspective (i.e., no moralizing).
Leveraging your self worth to "achievement" is like building a skyscraper on a beach in the middle of Caribbean. You can have the best architect, construction, and materials - but you are fundamentally exposing yourself to substrate (i.e., sand) and weather that are completely, entirely out of your control.
This "life is completely out of your control" part will seem foreign to many of the younger folks particularly on this forum because most of us at one point or another think of our "achievements" as a product of us controlling our environments. As we get older, all of us invariably in one form or another will have experiences that will teach us a very hard, but very very valuable lesson - our lives (and thereby achievements) are almost entirely shaped by forces beyond our control. Time is entropy. The more time, the more randomness that will be introduced.
So - don't benchmark yourself to external validation "achievements" because you are setting yourself up 100% for failure. And when that day comes, if you haven't built anything else to define your self worth on, it will be a very deep dark hole to climb out of.
Patrick? Is that you?
Keep in mind most of the people you meet outside our respective work bubbles don't even know the difference between IB and PE. Either way they're mentally going to go "ah okay, he's a finance bro, I get it" so it's a bit of a wash on that front.
Went into IB and then MF PE mostly for the sake of it (and to prove to myself / others that I could do MF PE I suppose...). Don't have 'regrets' per se and am grateful for a well compensated job in a worsening market but wish I'd taken the time to figure out what truly interests me / wish I'd taken the leap to other higher risk opps that I had in front of me at one point (think startups or venture). It's weighed a bit on my relationships and friendships and personal happiness and I don't see a long term path fwd in the industry.
Long winded way of saying - try therapy, go do informational interviews / set up casual coffee chats just to learn about other industries outside of the buyside, it can't hurt. Trying to do more of this myself. In any event, sounds like you're in a good spot - gl man
hey, mind if you DM me?
Youre getting downvoted because of the attitude and snide but I'm in same boat and I'm sure many others are too.
Hopefully you find time to figure out what it is you truly want to do
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