Interview With A Friend on Making Decisions (Part II)

LENTMAN : I was named after my father and at some point it was impressed upon me that that I had an image and legacy to live up to. Unfortunately I think I interpreted that to mean I had to follow a path that did not make the best use of my talents. But anyway, did your parents impress upon you that you had to live up to some image? It seems significant to me that you initially chose a career in math which was the same career path both of your parents took.

FRIEND : As I said, my parents were very controlling of me during my childhood, and they had a lot of influence over what I did, and few choices were left to me. Choosing math was a combination of this and the fact that I had nothing else that was an obvious choice for me (again, I'm not particularly good at big decisions). My parents thought I should major in math, I was good at math, there was nothing else, so math it was. It wasn't really an image thing though. Mainly my parents just wanted me to get prepared for a safe, secure job, and they thought a mathematics degree would enable me to get a job similar to the ones they had (working for a big corporation). From their perspective It was a familiar and reliable path so they encouraged me to go that way. Since I had no better plan, I went along with it. Eventually, I came to realize that I actually did have preferences of my own and began to pursue them. It took a while though. I sometimes feel envious of people who know what they want to do with their lives from an early age. On the other hand, not knowing what you want to do enables you to explore and look around, and that can be enjoyable if you have the right attitude.