(토요모임) [24th, August, 2019] Saturday meeting topic

[Scarlet]

Howdy !  It's me Scarlett !   

This week we will talk about the ' Reflection & Attitudes and Career Development '.  

Do not be obsessed with all the articles too much. Just pick some articles what you have interests and prepare your opinions related to those articles. :) 

◈ Reflection & Attitudes :  

--- Dialogue: Sharp contrast between German and Japanese attitudes towards WWII
--- What did you want to be when you grew up?
--- Write your biggest regret.

◈ Politics & Attitudes :

--- Germany won respect by addressing its World War II crimes. Japan, not so much.
--- Germany and Japan: Different Attitudes towards History
--- Five Tips on Self-Reflection for Personal Growth

◈ Career Development :

--- The three-stage blueprint for “crafting” a flexible career
--- What did you want to be when you grew up?

With luv 

Scarlett

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Dialogue: Sharp contrast between German and Japanese attitudes towards WWII

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What did you want to be when you grew up? 

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People were asked what they regret most in life and their answers were heartbreaking

Posted 5 days ago by Jessica Brown in people

With the New Year looming, it’s an unofficial tradition to reflect on the years passed and ahead, and set ourselves New Year’s Resolutions.

Earlier this year, New Yorkers were invited to write their biggest regrets on an empty chalkboard, and the results went viral. So if you need inspiration for your resolutions - and so their mistakes don’t go in vain – this is what New Yorkers had to say. 

- I regret all the time I wasted not saying yes to things

- Never going after my dreams

- I’e been told recently I was homeless, if I hadn’t hurt the people I had maybe I wouldn’t have been

- I wanted to do so many things but I can never seem to find the time

- I did all the things that were Plan B. I just never did it

- Never speaking up

- Not being a better friend

Then the video says:

- As the board filled up with so many stories we noticed that almost all these regrets had something in common.

They were about chances not taken.

They were about words not spoken.

They were abut dreams never pursued .

People were then given an eraser to wipe the writing off the board. Then the video gives the advice:

- Every day is a clean slate

- Do the things you regret not doing 

Article source : https://www.indy100.com/article/people-asked-their-regrets-7466971

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< Questions >

Q1. What is the biggest regret for you this year? Why?

Q2. What is the biggest regret in your whole life time? 

Q3. If you can change one thing in your past life, what would it be? Why do you want to change it?

Q4. What was the last thing you have regretted purchasing?  

Q5. Would you do different things for your regretful behavior if you have another chance? 

Q6. What was the biggest achievement this year for you? And for our society? 

Q7. What was your new year's resolution this year? How many goals did you achieve until now? 

Q8. Do you have any wish next year? 

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Germany won respect by addressing its World War II crimes. Japan, not so much.
By Adam Taylor / August 13, 2015

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe go for a handshake during a welcoming ceremony at the Chancellery in Berlin April 30, 2014. (REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz )

This Friday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will give a statement designed to mark the 70th anniversary of his country's defeat in World War II. Whatever he says, Abe's wording will be scrutinized in Japan and abroad. Many have suggested that Abe might try to water down the official line on Japan's guilt in the conflict, part of what is perceived as a broader effort to remilitarize Japan.

The interest in Abe's speech stands in stark contrast with the situation in Germany, another major defeated power in World War II. While Chancellor Angela Merkel traveled to Moscow in May to commemorate the end of the war in Europe and gave a statement that said Nazi Germany was "responsible" for millions of dead during the conflict, her comments faced little of the heated public scrutiny that accompanies every word that the Japanese leader says about World War II.

“Japan will never be another Germany,” Doowon Heo, a 36-year-old teacher from South Korea, explained to the Associated Press. “The number of people who have personally experienced the colonial era will continue to decline, but Japan continues to refresh our memory about what it was like then.”

It's reasonable to wonder why the two countries are in such different situations 70 years past the war. Opinion polls can help us understand some of the nuances of the situation. One recent poll conducted by Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, for example, found that 73 percent of Germans believed that their attempts to apologize for the war had been sufficient, compared to 57 percent of Japanese.

However, the same poll found that an equal number of people in Japan and Germany felt that apologies no longer needed to be made, and a larger proportion of Germans (55 percent) than Japanese (46 percent) felt that apologies should continue to be made.

Another poll, conducted by Pew Research Center in 2015, found that neither Japan nor Germany viewed World War II as the most important factor in their relations with the United States. A larger amount of Japanese said that the U.S.-Japan military alliance and the 2011 earthquake and tsunami were more important than the War for relations with the United States, while many Germans say that the fall of the Berlin Wall is the most important factor. These perspectives were not shared by Americans, for whom World War II is still considered the most important event in relations with both Germany and Japan.

When it comes to expressions of regret, according to Pew, 37 percent Americans believe that Japan has sufficiently apologized for its military actions. However, a further 24 percent say no apology is required. These figures are actually slightly more positive than the corresponding numbers for Germany: 33 percent of Americans say Germany has apologized sufficiently and 21 percent say no apology is necessary.

Where there's a real disparity between the two nations, however, is in their relations with their closer neighbors. The Asahi Shimbun poll found that a huge 94 percent of Germans felt that relations were good with their neighbors, despite the damage wrought by Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.

This seems a fair conclusion: Germany's relations with its neighbors is currently defined by their joint membership of the European Union, a continent-wide project devoted to economic and political cooperation. Any immediate threat of a military conflict between Germany and France, for example, seems virtually nonexistent.

Not so for Japan. In particular, Japan and China are involved in territorial disputes that do have the capacity to turn violent, and relations with South Korea are also heated at times. According to the Asahi Shimbun poll, half of Japan believes its relations with the neighbors it fought with during World War II are bad, and just 46 percent believe they are good.

It seems that a perceived lack of remorse over Imperial Japan's military actions may be behind this. Another Pew poll, this time from 2013, found that just 1 percent of South Koreans felt that Japan had adequately apologized for its military actions, with China only a few points higher.

What explains this discrepancy? Clearly Western Europe and East Asia are different neighborhoods, but on the surface of it there appears to be a lot of similarities in these cases. Both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan committed horrifying atrocities during World War II, for example. Both also suffered greatly during World War II – Germany in fact lost a greater percentage of its population in the fighting, but Japan suffered the ill-effects of two nuclear bombs. After the war, both countries had war crimes trials and tribunals brought against them, with wartime leaders punished. Both countries have since become important allies to the United States and Western Europe and economic powerhouses. And both countries have officially apologized: Japan has made at least four official statements that are considered apologies for Imperial Japan's conduct in the 1930s and 1940s.

The manner in which apologies have been made may be an especially important factor in explaining the different attitudes to Japan and Germany, however. Many in Europe remember the case of Willy Brandt, the West German chancellor who unexpectedly dropped to his knees when he visited a memorial for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1970, or the speech German President Richard von Weizsaecker gave in 1985 when he said those who attempted to deny Nazi atrocities were “blind to the present.”

Japan has never had a similar moment of abject, emotive public remorse. Instead, official apologies from Japanese officials have been perceived as too little and too late, and often contradicted by other comments from officials that seemed to whitewash history or question whether Imperial Japan's atrocities really occurred. Part of the problem is a refusal among Japanese conservatives to allow all aspects of Imperial Japan – a period that spanned almost 80 years as opposed to Nazi Germany's 12 – to be condemned. In Japan, it's not rare to see the Rising Sun flag, for example, a flag that many South Korean and Chinese critics compare to the Swastika. Prime Minister Abe and other Japanese leaders before him have visited the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, a shrine that commemorates all who died in service of the Empire of Japan, including a number of people considered war criminals.

After 70 years, it's hard to see Abe's speech could placate critics of Japan's wartime conduct, and he also has to balance concerns of how to appease Japan's international critics with domestic calls to put Japan's past behind it. Earlier this year, as Merkel visited Japan, she gave some veiled advice: Saying that Germany was only able to build a good relationship with its neighbors by calling "things by their name."

Article source : https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/08/13/germany-won-respect-by-addressing-its-world-war-ii-crimes-japan-not-so-much/

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Germany and Japan: Different Attitudes towards History

By Wu Hailong (neurope.eu)/ Updated: 2014-01-02 18:53

My two years as China’s ambassador to the EU have deepened my understanding, and respect, of the European integration process. In the aftermath of World War II, the war ravaged countries of Europe and their people had such a strong desire to heal the trauma of war and build a just and lasting peace that they determined to advance European integration. Germany’s repentance and unequivocal denouncement of Nazism were an essential part of this process, which led to genuine reconciliation, stability and peace in Europe. 

On December 7, 1970, Mr. Willy Brandt, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, knelt down in profound apology at the Monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a scenario deeply impressed the Europe and the whole world. Successive German governments have not only admitted Germany’s war crimes and apologized sincerely to Nazi victims, but have also gone out of their way to fully inform young Germans of Nazi atrocities so that they will never forget this dark chapter of history. Two years ago when I visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, I was overwhelmed to see the 2,711 concrete slabs that remind us that the Nazi history must never be repeated.

Japan, by contrast, has failed to take action over the past 70 years to heel the deep wounds that its aggressive and ferocious wars have inflicted on the people of Asia. In Tokyo, there is also a place reminiscent of WWII—the Yasukuni Shrine, which still enshrines 14 Class-A war criminals convicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. All of them are culprits or commanders in Japan’s war of aggression and their hands were stained with blood of Asian people. While German leaders have knelt down in penitence, some Japanese leaders have all too often paid homage to these chief war criminals by visiting the Yasukuni Shrine. In doing so，they trample on our painful history and deeply offend people in China and other countries that were victims of Japanese aggression. 

The issue of Yasukuni Shrine is, in essence, about whether the Japanese government is ready to fully repent the dark episodes of its history. In Japan, some are still unwilling to accept the post-World War II international order and attempt to whitewash its aggressive past. This denial lies at the root of Japan’s long-standing tensions with its neighbours. I once asked my European friends how the people of Europe would deal with Germany if it approached its history as Japan does? Could Europe have maintained 70 years of peace and prosperity? Would the European Union have been possible? 

On December 26, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in a calculated move, paid homage to the Yasukuni Shrine, arousing serious concerns across the international community, especially among Asian countries. It is widely noted that since Abe took office one year ago, he has strengthened Japan’s national security regime, overhauled its national defence policy, increased military spending and loosened self-imposed bans on exporting weapons. He has even gone so far as to claim that his lifelong goal is to reinterpret and ultimately revise Japan’s 1947 pacifist Constitution. Proposed changes include allowing the country to officially maintain a standing army. These dangerous moves challenge the post war order, setting off alarm bells and raising strong concerns among Japan’s neighbours and the international community. The Abe government has put Japan on a dangerous path，making it the biggest trouble-maker in Asia. As observed in the New York Times regarding his visit to the Shrine, Abe is asserting Japan’s track away from its postwar pacifism and his deeply revisionist views of history cannot inspire confidence that Tokyo can play a bigger security role in Asia.

When visiting the site of the Potsdam Conference in Brandenburg, Germany last May, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said history is a mirror and only by facing it squarely, can we embrace the future. World War II was concluded at the price of millions of lives. These lives underpin an international post-war order that must be upheld and should not be subject to sabotage or denial. Any attempt to gloss over or glorify a history of fascist aggression is unacceptable to people in China, other Asian countries and beyond and should not be tolerated by peace-loving people across the world.

43 years ago, Chancellor Brandt knelt down in Warsaw to enable Germany to stand up as a normal and responsible player in Europe and the wider world. If Abe persists in denying the war-waging history, Japan will continue to kneel down under the weight of history. 

Article source : http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-01/02/content_17212526.htm

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<Questions> 

Q1. What do you think of Japan's attitudes towards World War 2?

Q2. What do you think of Germany's attitudes towards World War 2?

Q3. Why do we need reflective thinking ?

Q4. What is the requirements of leadership?

Q5. Why political leader's attitude towards misdeed is important?

Q6. What do you think of German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a leader?

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Five Tips on Self-Reflection for Personal Growth
2016, December 13 Silke Morin 

Personal growth can be achieved through self-reflection. As December wraps up, are you considering resolutions for the coming year? Before you resolve to change a habit, take time to engage in self-reflection, which is a valuable tool for personal growth.

How to Use Self-Reflection for Personal Growth
For many people, new year’s resolutions involve some form of self-improvement. We want to lose weight, quit smoking, or start an exercise program. These are all worthwhile goals, but to make the most of the changes you want to create, you should start with some self-reflection.
By definition, self-reflection involves deliberate thinking about your own behavior and beliefs. When you engage in this deliberate kind of thinking, you will develop awareness of your mental and emotional states and awareness of your actions. Developing this awareness is the basis for personal growth (Personal Growth: Flower Where You're Planted).

Five Habits that Enhance Self-Reflection and Personal Growth

1. Be honest with yourself. 

You don’t do yourself any favors if you aren’t 100% honest with yourself about how things are going and how you are behaving.

2. Notice behavior patterns. 

We are all creatures of habit. Some of these habits are helpful and others are not. It’s good to be aware of your habits so you can actively weaken the ones you don’t want and strengthen the ones you do want.

3. Be able to articulate your core values. 

If you don’t know what’s important to you, how can you ever grow and manifest your best self? Take time to consider what’s most important to you so that you can better eval‎‎uate whether or not you're living those values.

4. Be forgiving. 

Change is hard and old habits are hard to break. Be gentle with yourself when you don’t get it right. It’s okay. We’re all human. We all make mistakes (The Blame Game and Forgiveness).

5. Keep track of your self-reflection. 

Start a journal where you record your observations and monitor your personal growth. This will help you when looking back at your year to remind yourself of where you’ve been and where you want to go.

Top Five Questions for Self-Reflection

■ What are my values?
■ In what ways do my words and actions reflect or fail to reflect my values?
■ What are areas in which I’m doing well and what are areas in which I could improve?
■ How am I caring for myself so that I am mentally and physically at my best?
■ What have I learned about myself today (this week, this month, this year)?

■ If you can engage in self-reflection, you will develop insights about yourself and put yourself in a great position for personal growth.
■ Find Silke on Facebook, Google+, Twitter and on her personal blog.

Tags: self-reflection for personal growth

APA Reference
Morin, S. (2016, December 13). Five Tips on Self-Reflection for Personal Growth, HealthyPlace. Retrieved on 2019, May 29 from https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/livingablissfullife/2016/12/self-reflection-a-valuable-tool-for-personal-growth 

Article source: https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/livingablissfullife/2016/12/self-reflection-a-valuable-tool-for-personal-growth

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<Questions> 

Q1. What is self-reflection ? Why do we need it?

Q2. What are your core pursuing values?

Q3. In what ways do your words and actions reflect or fail to reflect your values?
Q4. What are areas in which you're doing well and what are areas in which you could improve?
Q5. How are you caring for yourself so that you are mentally and physically at your best?
Q6. What have you learned about yourself today (this week, this month, this year)?
Q7. If you can engage in self-reflection, you will develop insights about yourself and put yourself in a great position for personal growth.

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The three-stage blueprint for “crafting” a flexible career
15 Aug 2019 / Cassie Werber/ Writer, Quartz Africa

For a firm to support flexibility, it needs to acknowledge that its staff are complex human beings with diverse lives

In theory, flexibility is firmly on the agenda for companies that want employees to thrive. Work that can bend can help people avoid burnout and navigate longer, more varied career paths. It’s also a path to fairer workplaces: if satisfying careers can accommodate other responsibilities, like caregiving, fewer people (especially women) will be forced out of them.

But in practice, negotiating flexibility—still a new concept in many workplaces—can be scary. Employees, fearing their dedication will be questioned, can view even asking about reduced or different hours as too dangerous to countenance. The response of managers can be key, but they too are under pressure: judged by their team’s collective work, supervisors might not feel incentivized to help.

A new study on flexible working from the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University in Indiana suggests a way forward. The researchers spent two years conducting detailed interviews with employees on flexible schedules, managers with flexible reports, HR officers, and executives, concluding that going part-time needn’t be a career dead end—or a lonely process. They suggest a three-step blueprint for “crafting” a good flexible career that’s based on deep collaboration between employees, managers, and their companies.

How reducing work works
The study, published in the Journal of Vocational Behavior in June, focused on one type of flexibility: “reduced-load” (RL) work, defined as any full-time job “redesigned to reduce the hours and the workload while taking a pay cut,” for example, moving to a four-day week from five days with a cut to 80% of full-time salary. (The findings are still useful when considering the other types of flexibility with which firms and individuals are experimenting, including four day weeks with no pay cut, employees setting their own hours, or compressed weeks in which people work longer days, but fewer of them.)

The researchers conducted 86 detailed interviews with employees at 20 companies in North America, all of which were “early adopters” of flexible working. They concluded that for flexibility to work, the onus shouldn’t just be on the individual to work out every detail of their journey. Successful arrangements also need to include a commensurate cut to the amount of work expected of the employee. If not, they risk ending up in a situation of working full-time hours for part-time pay.

For a firm to support flexibility, it needs to acknowledge that its staff are complex human beings with diverse lives, says Dr Ellen Ernst Kossek, the study’s lead author. A strong cultural focus on work fails to acknowledge that people are often driven by much more than career, she says, but it’s a “misconception” that people for whom family or other interests are important aren’t dedicated to their jobs. They can be “highly work-centric,” while still being “centric in other identities, whether it’s family life or starting out a side gig.”
Women entering the workforce in ever-greater numbers has created increasing tension between the idea of a job as the main focus of one’s life, and life as we actually experience it, Kossek suggests. “There are a lot of what I would call dual-centric people. And we haven’t structured jobs for a lot of people to have more than one primary identity,” she says.

Employers have some legitimate fears. Managers in the study were worried that they would ultimately be held responsible for any drop in productivity resulting from flexible working, and that any overspill of work would fall to them, or to other full-time team members. Some of these reservations need to be addressed through creative, collaborative thinking, says Kossek.

The study also threw up some benefits for firms that ran parallel to having a potentially happier and more representative workforce. When a company needed to downsize, having RL staff decreased the imperative to cut headcount, because some of its employees were already cheaper than full-timers. Interviewees also talked about retaining talented individuals who might otherwise have been forced out of the workforce, including women and those past retirement age.

Three stages
How should managers, their reports, and companies think about introducing more flexible schedules? The researchers map out the three stages that led to the most success at the companies they talked to:

Stage 1: Exploration
Good job “scoping,” Kossek says, is crucial to the success of a flexible schedule—neglecting this step is often the reason for attempts at flexibility failing.

According to the study, all parties need to be open to mutual dialogue, and to agree that the job in question could be “redesigned” to incorporate more flexibility. On this point, the researchers noted that not all jobs are equally suitable for a reduction in hours. Jobs with predictable, quantifiable outcomes are easier to mold than those which require hard external deadlines or lots of daily face-to-face time, for example. In many cases, though, redesign isn’t impossible, especially when other structures, like splitting the work of one full-time postion between two part-time employees, is considered.

The researchers also recommend that everyone work collaboratively on identifying the “tactics” by which flexibility is introduced. For example, managers might need to find creative ways to tweak a person’s responsibilities, or parcel out work elsewhere, without unfairly loading other team members. This stage could also include discussion of deadlines, measures of success, and contingency measures for when things don’t go according to plan. The study also notes that, when apportioning budgets, managers need flexibility too. Having part-timers on their teams worked best when they could express work in terms of “full-time equivalent” hours, rather than total headcount.

Stage 2: Implementation
The researchers identified three main responsibilities which could be shared between employees and employers at this stage.

First, both parties needed to help prevent overwork, for example by anticipating where hitches might happen, and planning for busy times in advance. Second, employees with reduced hours needed to work on managing boundaries, and managers on respecting them. Thirdly, good communication was crucial “to make the work redesign tactics work,” they wrote.

It’s not always easy. “I think companies hear about flexibility but don’t take the time, sometimes, to really do trial-and-error and figure out how to implement it well,” Kossek says. “They run into their first roadblock and run away.” Some of this tendency to draw back at the first sign of trouble comes from a misconception about flexible workers, she suggests. Companies “think they’re getting a raw deal” by allowing some employees to work fewer hours, when in fact her research suggests that “part-time workers work more intensively.”

Stage 3: Embedding
Though the researchers went looking for reduced-load working regardless of gender, 95% of the employees they found and interviewed were women. One of the big problems with part-time careers can be shown by looking at earnings: Salary trajectories for men and women are similar in the early part of their careers, but after women have kids they tend to get paid less, in large part because they tend to work fewer hours.

Such career costs can be mitigated, the researchers suggest, with a few tweaks to how flexibility is managed and perceived. Firstly, everyone involved needs to troubleshoot problems as they arise, rather than blaming difficulties on an employee’s schedule. Second, employers should champion flexibility more generally (for example, for fathers as well as mothers), to avoid stigma and show true support.

Finally, companies need to think about all the metrics associated with performance other than pay—for example other reward or incentive schemes, appraisals, and goal-setting—to make sure people on reduced hours aren’t being marginalized. Ideally, the researchers noted, the firm would proactively record data and make its findings available to help with future flexibility design.

For anyone who still isn’t sure it’s possible to work flexibly, or worries about the consequences for their team, the study includes some encouraging examples. At one company, a high-performing female tax director working half-time won her firm’s “employee of the year” award—and a trip around the world during which she adopted her first child—for discovering an arcane tax law that saved the company millions of dollars. It’s an example, the researchers wrote, of how being flexible for a “high talent, hard-working employee, and giving her a workload facilitating her ability to be creative and focus, benefited both employer and employee.”

Article source : https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/08/the-three-stage-blueprint-for-crafting-a-flexible-career/

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What did you want to be when you grew up? 

10/14/2015 10:54 am ET | Updated Oct 15, 2015

Jodi Weiss / Career Strategist | Educator | Author | Founder and CEO of EverythingSmart

For the past decade, I’ve interacted with Millennials and Generation Z students in a college classroom setting, which means that twice a week I get to hear their gripes, their joys, what they care about, and I learn quickly the fastest route to boring them: preaching. Like everyone else, college kids do not want to hear me or anyone else preach to them about what they need to be doing, should be doing, or must do. They want to carve their routes and live out their journeys. But so many of them don’t know what they want to do - what major to choose? What career to pursue? What topic to write their papers on? More importantly, they wonder why any of it really matters.

One of the best books that I have read on how our young adults should be approaching their 20’s is Dr. Meg Jay’s The Defining Decade. I have taken to sharing her TED talk “Why 30 Is Not the New 20” (http://on.ted.com/Jay ) with my students, too. Basically,Dr. Meg Jay explains why one’s 20’s are a vital time in a young adult’s life to actively, if not aggressively, discover and pursue all that one seeks in terms of career, family, friends, and relationships. She asserts that our brains rewire themselves in our 20’s, preparing us for adulthood; a reminder that one’s 20’s are a perfect and critical time to set the agenda for one’s life.

The One Life

From the time we are in elementary school, people ask us what we want to be when we grow up. I recently asked my friend’s eight-year old the question and she said, “I’m just a kid; how could I know what I want to be when I’m an adult?” Maybe the questions should be: what do you love to do? What means something to you? What makes you feel happy? What do you care about regardless of any rewards? Maybe if we can implant that train of thought early on, what someone wants to do when they grow up will be less about picking and choosing and more about following one’s innate path.

I believe in the one life - that is, that who you are is imbedded in all you do, whether you are at work, or at home, running a race, or driving a car. The same passion and intensity that you give to the things outside of work are what you need to invest in your career, and if that’s not the case, you need to ask yourself why? Are you in the wrong career? The wrong life? Have you gone on autopilot?

What You Seek

I’m a believer that you first need to define where you wish to arrive before you start your engine to get there. How do you want to spend your days? Do you want to have time to travel? To work remote? To be on a plane throughout the week? Do you want to sit in an office or be outdoors? How do you define success? And how important is success to you? What will you do if you fail? How will you prepare yourself for hardship? Do you like to work 8 hour days or 12 hour days? What is the one activity in your life that if you have to give up more than two days in a row, you would feel miserable about? Is what you want to do tied to your parents/family’s expectations, or is it your personal ambition?

Easy Access: The Pros & The Cons

From my experience, the Millennials and Generation Z students I’ve met in my classroom are a mixed bag of passion, ideas, ennui, and a faint belief that the world of work as older generations may define it, is bullshit. Maybe they’re right. But maybe not. Students of today’s generation have grown up in a world of easy access - cell phones, text messages, email on the go, and the internet to find anything and everything that they seek instantaneously. I am always grateful that I encountered the internet and email and all of our modern day technology when I was already in graduate school. I’m grateful that when I was in college and the start of my graduate career, I still had to visit the library and dig in the card catalogues to find the resources I needed to write a research paper. Why? I loved the synergy I felt when I found the research I needed to prove my case and thus write a stellar paper.

Nowadays, a few clicks, and students find the articles they need. Sure, that’s great and quick and convenient, but I believe that there was something in the hunt - a persistence, a patience, a focus, that was learned. An ability to redefine and re-eval‎‎‎‎uate ones ideas and routes. And for me, there was something in the trenches of libraries that was magical in the same way it was magical that we made our way to appointments without GPS to guide us to locations - there was a sense of accomplishment, of focus, strategy. Convenience is convenient, but it is often a mindless act, too.

On that end, I still savor the good old days when I had to wait to get to a movie theater to watch a movie or wait until a movie came out on a VHS cassette to watch it at home. Maybe I am old fashioned, or maybe I like the pause that waiting brought us. The self- reflection; the time to re-eval‎‎‎‎uate. The floating time that occurred when I wrote a letter, tossed it in the mail, and it made its way to my recipient. To me, that was the time zone of possibility and wonder.

The Evolving Journey

What does anyone want to be when they grow up? Money has its allure, but financial reward only takes one so far in life. A career devoted to helping others is amazing, but not if you never get to help yourself or if you don’t have time to help the people closest to you in your life, such as aging parents or children. If your career is immersed in others, then you need to ask yourself if you are ignoring your own life. Titles and corner offices are great, too, but what does any of that mean in the long- term picture of your life? Does it provide freedom or make you more of a slave to your career?

What do you want to do when you grow up is perhaps one of the most complex questions. What you don’t want to do, is waste your life. Wake up in your later years to realize the things you cared about most were not what you devoted your life to. That you missed your opportunity. That you took short cuts and lived your life taking the easy way versus the way that was right and honest and true for you. Because sometimes it is too late. Sometimes you miss your moment. I hear again and again from folks that when you are 20 you think you have forever, but somewhere along the way, forever diminishes. What you want to be when you grow up is something that only you know, and it’s something that only you can take the time to figure out. It’s something that may evolve throughout your life, but it’s likely that the passion and motivation that leads you in one direction, will come along for all of your journeys and pursuits throughout your life.

Article source : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jodi-weiss/what-do-you-want-to-be-wh_4_b_8280212.html

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< Questions >

Q1. Did you become what you wanted to be when you grew up? If not, why not?

Q2. Do you have a to be list? 

Q3. What do you want to be after 30 years later? 

Q4. What is your definition of being happy? Are you happy now? 

Q5. What is your definition of success? Are you living a successful life now?