Life is a choice

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Illustration: Vu Dinh Giang

Actually, not only at the age of eighteen, but life is always a choice. We do this and not that, go this way and not that, do this job and not that, marry this person and not that, all are the results of a choice. And what our life achieves, what it becomes, happy or unhappy, useful or harmful to society depends on the way we choose.

Of course, some people have more choices than others. If we are naturally intelligent, beautiful, talented in music, painting, singing, if our parents are rich, we certainly have many things to choose from. But even if we do not have those advantages, we still have countless choices that we have to decide.

There are opportunities to choose due to luck, due to family background. But the main part is still the opportunities that we create ourselves. Ability creates opportunities for us to choose. If we do not have the ability, the opportunities will pass. We need to recognize all the options we have and create more new options.

Choice is so important that the lesson of choice is the most essential lesson of life. What determines our choices?

Life experience has shown me that there are three factors that determine our choices: one is intellectual capacity, two is values, three is vision.

Obviously, intellectual capacity plays an important role in choice. Intellectual capacity here is to grasp complete information, analyze that information and perceive the nature of what is happening around us.

Short term vision and long term vision

I pay more attention to the following two factors: values and vision. Values are what we consider important, essential, vital to us, what we are willing to trade our freedom, safety, and well-being to protect. Each person can have similar and different values. It is a diverse scale showing the order of priority of what we value.

There is nothing wrong with dreaming of a fulfilling life, on the contrary, it is the driving force of progress. People only differ in the way they reach their goals. It is our values that guide us on which path to take to reach our goals. Remember: everything has two sides, every choice requires us to pay a price. Therefore, it is important to understand the consequences of our choices.

Vision is the ability to see a future beyond the actual context in which we live. Short-term vision is chasing trendy industries, choosing a career based on immediate needs. Long-term vision is analyzing the social context, determining one's own talents, characteristics and abilities, the most important of which are self-learning ability and personal qualities. Those are the core values that determine the achievements we can achieve. With that long-term vision, we will not be discouraged by the difficulties ahead and persevere with our choices.

We all have the same goal of creating a better life for ourselves, our families and the society we live in. But we may differ in the way we choose to achieve that goal. The path we choose shows who we are. If you want a lot of money, a lot of power and status at any cost, even if it goes against your moral conscience, then that is a choice. Ask yourself what the price of that choice is and whether you are willing to pay that price.

The ten thousand hour rule

If you not only want to have a lot of money, but also want to be proud that you have made clean money with your own talent, not by begging, stealing, robbing or taking bribes, then you need to know that if you do everything with your highest effort and responsibility, if you put all your heart into your work, sooner or later the money will come to you. You do not need to look for it.

There is a rule called “the ten thousand hour rule”. Scientists have proven that under normal conditions, an ordinary person who persistently does a certain type of work will, after at most ten thousand hours, reach the level of proficiency of an expert in that work. If you reach the expert level, you will be used, if not here then somewhere else, that is for sure.

There is another thing more important than ten thousand hours, that is loving your work. Have you ever seen a famous and talented chef reluctantly cooking like it was a slave job? Have you ever seen a teacher who kept looking at his watch in class, hoping for the class to end so he could go home, and was loved and remembered by his students forever? Certainly not!

You cannot be truly successful in your work if you do not love it. There are many unfortunate people who are forced to do a boring job that they do not enjoy, just as a way to make a living. It is a pity that eight golden hours, that is one third of their life, are wasted in a boring and tasteless way.

If you love your work, you will find joy in doing it, you will do your best and you will surely achieve success. The greatest reward is inner joy, the feeling that you have lived a meaningful life. Other rewards such as money, status, and fame will come naturally as a consequence.

Life is a choice. Our choices show who we are and will determine what we will reap in the future. You are in the stage of choosing your future career. You need to look at a broad picture of society, and understand that today, many careers are interacting with each other, every job position requires a foundation of thinking, personal qualities and communication skills that specialized knowledge alone is not enough to meet. Therefore, choosing a career is not as important as how to prepare for that career.

You need to evaluate yourself correctly, your abilities, your will, your interests and passions, your dreams and your ability to endure challenges. These are the necessary conditions for making the right choice. And remember an English proverb: There is no such thing as a free lunch!