What do you actually want?

Before you can figure out what to study, you need to figure out what kind of life you're actually trying to build, and that's a question I don't think enough 18 year olds get asked seriously.

Most people skip this part, because it's uncomfortable, and because the world doesn't really make space for you to sit with it. You're handed a list of degrees, you're told to pick one, and the assumption is that the lifestyle will sort itself out later.

But the lifestyle doesn't sort itself out later. The lifestyle is the whole reason you're picking the degree in the first place.

So sit with this for a second.

What do you actually want?

Not what your parents want for you. Not what looks good on Instagram. Not what the kid you're trying to impress thinks is impressive. What do you, actually, when no one's watching, want your life to look like in ten years?

Maybe it's a quiet life. A small house, a wife, a few kids, enough money to not have to worry about groceries, and a boring job you don't hate. That's a beautiful life, and it's a very achievable one, but you have to be honest about it, because the degree path that gets you there looks really different from the degree path that gets you a Manhattan apartment and a six figure consulting job.

Maybe it's something bigger and louder. That's fine too. But you have to know which one it is, because they cost different amounts, and they ask different things of you, and chasing the wrong one is how people end up 30 with a pile of debt and a job they took because the lifestyle they thought they wanted demanded it.

And here's the part where I'd ask you to be a bit more honest with yourself than is comfortable.

Why do you want what you want?

If you're chasing a certain kind of lifestyle, where's that coming from? Is it because that's genuinely what makes you feel alive, or is it because somewhere along the way you decided you needed to prove something? To your parents, to your hometown, to the kids who didn't pick you, to yourself.

Because a lot of the time, the lifestyle people end up chasing isn't really the lifestyle they want. It's the lifestyle they think will finally make them feel like enough. And no degree, no salary, no job title is ever going to fix that, because that's not actually a money problem.

I'm not saying don't aim high. Aim wherever you want. But know why you're aiming there, because the answer to that question is going to shape every other decision in this course.

The kind of work you can stomach.
The kind of debt that's worth taking on.
The kind of person you'll end up marrying.
The kind of father or mother you'll be able to be.

All of that is downstream of this one question, so don't rush it.

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Reflect: If money was already taken care of, and no one was watching, what would you actually be doing with your days? And does the path you're currently considering have anything to do with that answer, or are they two completely different lives?