If I could send a message back in time, I would send it to my 16 year old self, and I would tell him (me) to man up, stop being such a goddamned pussy, and go into finance.

Maybe that’s just the cynicism of age talking, but that’s how I feel right now. I wish I had said “fuck all this artsy shit, I am gonna go where the money is. ”

I was totally on track for it coming out of high school. I got such high marks in accounting that the teacher was a little afraid of me. Said it would be a sin if I didn’t go into accounting as a profession. And I said “Uh, sure. ”

And that’s as far as it went. I knew I didn’t really want to be an accountant. Maybe if it had been harder for me, I would have valued it more, I don’t know. But to me, it was absurdly easy. It was all just math and being careful to do things right. It was just a system to me, and a relatively primitive one at that due to the limitations of the math inherent in finance.

And I am very good at systems.

But still, I knew I did not want to be an accountant, and that was proven beyond a doubt when I went to college and somehow ended up registering for a lot of courses that had nothing to do with business or accounting and no courses that did.

I never even considered business or finance. Somehow, the idea that accounting could be used for more than becoming an accountant never occurred to me. I never thought of becoming an entrepreneur, a banker, a broker, or any of the dozens of other jobs that the accounting skillset suits to a T.

To be honest, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I tried to get some idea by going to the guidance counselor’s office to take aptitude testing. But they didn’t seem to want to do it. I went like four times, and each time, they ignored me for a while then told me they couldn’t do it for some bullshit reason or another.

God those people were useless. And bitter. They always seemed pissed off, like a couple on the verge of divorce.

It probably wouldn’t have made any difference anyway. If getting 98 percent in Accounting wasn’t enough to convince me to follow that particular star, no aptitude test stood a chance. I had already decided, on some level, that being good at something didn’t mean you had to do it, despite what all the guidance counseling I had up until that point had told me.

The idea that you could be very good at something without enjoying it was not part of the curriculum when I was in junior high. And it honestly does seem counterintuitive to me, even now. I suppose that’s the problem with not being a mastery oriented person.

I just didn’t get enough pleasure from doing it right to even seriously consider doing it after graduation.

I wonder about other timelines for me sometimes. Versions of myself that might have happened. I know that if I had somehow gained some focus and ambition back then, I could have nailed a business degree, no problem. And then maybe gone on to get an MBA.

And then I would have either gone into finance or started a business.

Pretty sure I could have made a small business work. But knowing me, and how I always want to take things to the next level, I probably would have started a franchise. Then sold the franchise rights to others and helped them get their version of my brilliant business up and running.

And then… WORLD DOMINATION! Mua ha ha!

Well, maybe not. But remember, my heroes list includes Hershey, Disney, and Jobs. Those guys changed the world more than your average guru, and they did it with business, not peace love and granola.

I can’t see anything but spiritual annihilation down the finance path. I mean, I suppose I could have become a nice safe (and rich) banker or worked in honest insurance, but I know how greedy I am, and I can’t see anything good coming from my being in a position where there’s oodles of cash to be had and all I have to do is forget my basic honesty, fall in love with my own cleverness on an unprecedented scale, decide that anything is fair game as long as I can get away with it, and completely sell my soul to Satan.

I can imagine that version of myself ending up angry, arrogant and bitter. A classic case of “I have it all, so why aren’t I happy?”. That’s the price for pursuing the ideals of greed and materialism, I suppose. You spend your youth pursuing every dollar you can trick into the back of your windowless van, only to find out that, once age slows you down enough for you to stop and think about what you are doing, and ask yourself if you’re truly happy, or just busy.

I honestly think that the pursuit of wealth and status acts as a religion in some people. More than you would think. By encouraging us to never settle for less than we can get and always seek to better our position, society gives people the structure they need in order to keep going. Whenever the modern citizen starts wondering what they are doing with their lives, received ambition says “You’re working hard to get that promotion!” every single time.

But that only lasts for a while. So people learn to just stay absorbed in their day to day lives and never look up at the sky.

And it works for people, because what other purpose in life does the modern spiritual milieu offer? The world has a catastrophic shortage of meaning and nurturing.

What’s a soul supposed to do?

I will talk to you you nice people again tomorrow.