Story 3: Midnight & Overthinking

Emma Grace said, "Getting what we want begins with knowing what we want."

The problem is, I don't even know what is it that I want.

I had a conversation with Zach the other day. He told me that our future changes the moment we make a choice in our life. Therefore, it is quite impossible to build a time travel machine to the future. There are 1001 possibilities on what our future looks like, which all depends to choices that we make in our everyday life.

Sometimes I wish I don't have to think about the future. Why can't I just enjoy my present time?

I have a career choice to make. Whether to stay in external audit or whether I should go back to internal audit. Honestly, I enjoyed my time at my previous audit firm. There were a lot of learning going on. I truly enjoyed my time there. My time was occupied with learning and gaining new knowledge.

If I were to ask my heart, she would absolute-definitely say to go for external auditing. But, that would mean I have to let go of my current opportunity with one of the biggest telecommunication and entertainment companies in Malaysia which I have already received (plus, their offer is quite lucrative). If I were to go for external auditing, I might have to repeat the peak season and all, and their pay can be quite low in comparison to actual work and time spent on auditing.

In short, internal audit is more stable in terms of good pay, 9-5 job, I am good at (I think, but not really passionate about) whereas external audit is more time demanding, good learning curve, I am really passionate about this career (but I think I am quite slow at external audit), less pay and peak period can really suck life out of you.

God, I am having trouble to decide.

Last 2 weeks ago, a friend of mine from Manpower had a small open house for Eid celebration. I went there with Jeremy, as usual we carpooled. Jeremy had started on a small vape business, which I think he enjoyed it since he is a vape-r himself. Good for him to earn bucks in something that he really enjoy doing.

Jeremy is quite an optimistic person. I asked for his opinion and directions because I felt quite lost with what is it that I want in life. I was having trouble to find the purpose and reasons why we all should go to work when in the end we are all going to die anyway?

Jeremy said, it is not the destination that is important. It is the journey itself.

He told me that I need to know what is it that I want in life, what kind of life that I imagined I will have in 5 years ahead, and based on that I need to start  curate on what kind of person I want to be. Start working from there. (see, I told you J is quite a character).

Again, back to the question, what is it that I want?

I want to learn. I want to learn as much as I can before my time is out, before I got married, before I have to dedicate my time to other important things in life, like marriage and family. Based on my calculation, I am only left with 5 years before time is out. By 30, I am pretty sure my parents will force me to go get a guy and have a life.

I want to go to external audit. I want to learn under big audit firms because they have enough resources, their clients consists of various industries and large public listed companies. It is not entitlement that I am chasing for. It is learning and making myself useful is what I want.

If I were to ask my heart without taking into account other factors, I would definitely go for external audit. And that is where the problem comes in. The heart is emotions based. It does not do the thinking. It does not takes into account what is rationale or not. I need to use my brain to decide. And the brain says "go to internal audit. That A company is a good company to start with. After all, we go to work to earn bucks, aren't we?"

Shit.

Yes, we go to work to earn bucks. But, what is the point of earning millions when in the end we are all going to die anyway? What is the point of earning a lot when you don't really feel alive with passion? And be alive and burning with passion, that is something that can only be felt with heart, not brain.

Oh. My. God. Please. Send. Help.

I am contradicting myself now. I have to decide on one path and just go all out with that.

On a side note, I am glad I have friends like Jeremy and Zach. They are like yin yang lol. Jeremy is the positive one to the extreme whereas Zach is the negative to the extreme. Which they balance out my thoughts and they put me the right state of mind, not too negative and not too positive. So, when i talked to J, I feel super confident things will go as planned that I often forgot to have backup plans, but when I discuss things with Z, he will give his insights and remind me to prepare for the worst.

My friends are not average. They are super cool human beings.

Oh right, going back to the topic, I think I need to ponder on that for a bit more time.

Also, I need to teach myself that what I want might not be the one that I need. I need to accept that I guess. Maybe the one that comes to me is what I needed all along.

God, give me guidance. Amen.