Why Join Banking

I remember the exact moment freshman year of college I chose to become an investment banker. Those guys are so cool, they get paid insane amounts of money, bang the hottest girls, and live the models and bottles life I'm sure we've all dreamed of at one point. Thoughts of fast cars, fake tits, and throwing $100 bills around like monopoly money filled my head. We all long for meaning right? Why not derive your life's meaning out of a hedonistic lifestyle centered around power and pleasure. The world is a dark place, filled with people out to get you, so you logically look out only for yourself. It's the only way to be and it's the right way to be.

Nobody joins banking for anything besides the exit opps and immediate money. But once your on the inside, after all those years of hard work to get there, you will inevitably realize the gravity of your mistakes. It dawned on me at 4am on a Sunday morning after I worked for more than 20 hours straight that what I do is not ok. It's not ok to work those hours, it's not ok to blindly accept that you should, its not ok to waste your life away one CIM at a time.

On your deathbed I know you will look back and think to yourself, man I really wish I missed more holidays with my family, I wish I didn't go to more weddings, I wish I missed more of the most important moments of my siblings' lives, I wish I cancelled more trips to see my significant other 12 hours before departure to work on a CIM (yes that happened, and yes they planned their entire weekend with multiple family / friend dinners with me), I wish I stayed up later and got less sleep to catch that comma out of place on page 76, I wish I let more of my friends down, I wish I hated even more people, I wish a lot of fucking things that crushed my life down into the tiny, pathetic shitpile it is has become today.

I'm sure a few of you are getting hot and ready thinking "Sack up, it's only two years of your life". Sure, only two years of your life. Two years is a long time to sacrifice in the pursuit of sacrificing even more of your life for something that you almost surely did not envision yourself doing growing up. Two years is enough time to destroy your life, trust me. Your friends can only put up with so many plans crumbling, your family can only call you so many times to listen to how sad your life is, eventually people go away and actively stay away.

The fact that talented students actually WANT to join banking is beyond comprehension. With all the talent, work ethic, and capacity to do good, you choose to pursue the most immoral, self-serving, and valueless career in the world. You can change the world, do great things, and live a fulfilling life, yet you sit at your computer for 16 hours a day trying to catch an improperly placed $ sign.

Our vision of success has become so thoroughly warped by our own mental illness that is banking. You embrace (to borrow from 1984) doublethink to a scary degree. You start to believe that what you are doing is worthwhile, that the sacrifice will inevitably lead to happiness, that society is better off having you as a banker as opposed to literally anything fucking else.

Look at yourself now, you're 24 at the top of the world working at Blackrock. Maybe you'll make VP one day! What a fulfilling life that'll be! You could have fucking been something. You could have done something great. You squandered your life away in pursuit of something that ultimately did not and will not ever make you happy.

And look at me now, I made it boys, I fucking made it after all those years. I have a $5,000 coat, a car I spent enough money on to send 15 kids to college, the admiration of people I absofuckinglutely hate, and a completely meaningless life permeated by intense regret. There is so much more to life, so many things to do and see, so much good you can do, why would you ever, EVER actively choose to piss your life away?

Do you ever think to yourself, "Man if everyone ran shit like a banker imagine what the world could be"? That world is a possibility, but only if you take that first step.