Wasting you're lives?
Even those like me who are competing for an internship at a BB for IB, or anyone else that gets their choice of position. Does anyone else feel like by the time they are 70 they are gonna look back and think they wasted their life and a good portion of their 20s/ 30s doing an insane amount of hours? I really like finance and want to be in banking but does anyone else feel like wasting their lives doing insane hours of banking they are gonna look back and think they could have used that time to create a company or doing something more important??? Am I the only one who sees it like this?
"Creating a company" takes more hours than 70 per week. And you'll probably fail and be in debt after too.
Yea but its far more satisfying work and you actually own something
If you're in debt, you really don't own shit
Title should be your, not you're. No you're not the only one that feels that way, that's why the turnover is so high in IB at the A1 + A2 level.
Work to live, don't live to work. Unless you derive maximum pleasure out of life from things associated with work, then by all means... go for it and don't look back. But hey, different strokes for different folks. If you can get into IB straight out of UG, it provides you with a wonderful platform to launch the rest of your life and career. To many, a few years of sacrifice is well worth it to open the doors that follow.
It's 100% a waste of time if you're not saving money and learning...then creating true wealth for yourself, which is when you're no longer whoring out your time for money.
Like many have said on this site - it's all about paying it forward and investing in yourself for the future. Most getting into to IB look to move out into PE/HF or other roles. Whilst you may never work M-F 9-5 and have the spare time people in other careers do, you also have a lot of doors opened for you that most can only dream of.
ending up at a 9-5 and a bunch of "what ifs" is worse. and statistically speaking, a lot of people will end up that way.
I know a lot of people that work 9-5 and then do fuck all after work. Work, sleep, eat, repeat. Nothing on the side, no going out, no travelling etc. Just because you're working 9-5 doesnt mean you'll have a social life. It's up to you & your choices.
and tbh whatever you choose to do & pick, you will always think about the past and have some regrets. Could be career, could be relationships, could be education, could be family-related etc; but the point is, there is always something you regret.
If you prioritize work, something's gotta give. Whether you end up regretting or not depends on you and your preferences, but I think it's healthy to give yourself the right expectation - balance in all facets of your life is something that cannot be achieved. Identify which parts matter to you the most and make time for them.
Forget banking, what is one profession where you aren't wasting your life?
Go and work for a non-profit. You will surely see that it gives an enormous amount of satisfaction to change the lives of a few thousand people in one geography, but in the larger scheme of things - it is just a blip on the radar.
Go and work in politics to maximize your impact and you will realize that at the end of the day, you don't really have a ton of independence of thought since you will be busy pleasing the factions of society that brought you in power.
Go and become a world-class investor/manager/entrepreneur and you will see that after a few hundred million there is no incremental value that money can bring to your life.
Go and become a doctor and you will see that no matter how brilliant you are, you just can't save some people.
Scientists are running after resources to keep their projects alive. Artists, even the good ones, die of unfathomable reasons. Teachers too get circled up in the politics of academia. At the end of the day, even Elon Musk is hammering shareholder wealth, even though he is helping us get to the next level as humanity.
In retrospect, everything will seem unsatisfying because then you will see all the alternatives you could've taken; seems like hindsight bias to me. I personally was perplexed with this problem for a long time - How do I know that I am not wasting my life by doing this?
Since it worked for me, I will give you the same words: 1. No matter what you do, in the larger context of humanity - you will still be irrelevant. No matter what amount of wealth you possess, how many patents you own, you will just be a guy who lived. Process that and internalize it.
Put your head down for a while and work; just do something that may not make you 'happy', but does not kill you either. It will make you more agnostic to the idea of 'doing something important' or 'following your passion'. If, at the end of a few years, you feel like jumping the ship - go ahead. At least you would've known you tried. Don't think about 'What else can I do' even before you have started.
It's not about what you choose to do, but about how well you do it; and even then, it might end up being an 'eh' instead of an 'aha'.
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