“Hey Max, you’ve got to check out this school called Duke. You’ll love it!”
When I was a junior in high school, I had my heart set on another school a few hours north on I-95. My parents and I planned a spring break trip to visit schools all up and down the East Coast. As we were setting the schedule, one of my good friends (who coincidentally ended up here with me) told us to add Duke to the list. North Carolina wasn’t too far off our path, so we figured there was no harm in making a quick stop in Durham.
From the minute we pulled up to the admissions office, I was in love. This place was beautiful and, I came to learn, had a strong program in public policy and an infectious school spirit. All things I was looking for. From that point on, all I thought about was how to get into Duke. Fortunately, it worked.
Fast-forward almost five years.
I loved my internship last summer and thought that was the only place for me to go back and work after graduation. Nonetheless, I found myself at the career fair in September walking amongst the booths. Again, on a whim I dropped my resume at a strategy consulting firm. I’d never heard of them before, and wasn’t especially drawn in by what the representative was saying. I took their pamphlet and went on with my day. To my surprise, two months later I’ve accepted a job offer from them and will be heading to Boston to work my first job out of school.
Quite often I find myself sitting around thinking about where I’ll be down the road, the life I want to live and what it will look like. Looking forward, it is easy to identify a starting point and a destination, and to lay a predefined path in between the two points.
But looking back, that path never seems to match what I had anticipated. And not only is that fine—I think it’s great.
There are a lot of ways to get from A to B, and it generally ends up being more like a journey from A to G with lots of points in between. New interests come up; old interests fade. What seemed like the only option before becomes an afterthought, and what seemed unthinkable becomes the clear path forward.
Relentlessly and indiscriminately pursuing opportunity seems to be one recipe for success (loosely defined). If you always pick the experiences you find fulfilling, it’s hard to look back with serious regret. Sure, running single-mindedly with blinders can be great. At the same time, living with a little experiential ADD—that is, a short attention span and a hunger for something new—can be pretty neat too. My life feels haphazard, and I like it.
Leaving Duke, we are walking down a path unencumbered. Our destination is unclear, and our route equally blurred.
Max Stayman is a Trinity senior. His column runs on alternate Fridays.
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