Way to go in consulting

It is my second consulting gigs, and I have begun to identify the areas where I am lacking skills. The realization comes as a mixed blessing. It is depressing because I have a long way to go before assembling the whole skill kit, but it is liberating because it excites me to move forward with a fighting spirit.

If my personal history is any indication, this is very good. I have a tendency to get complacent without pressure. When I went to college, I faced a cultural shock: the communication in mandarin, the communal living with 5 other people, the sudden change of expectation from a child to an adult, the beginning of counting romantic relationship not as a damaging evil, but as some trophy you brag about... For the first two years, I felt I never really fit in. But you know what, looking back, I made great effort in trying to fit in, and I was okay in the end. The same process happened in my first two years of overseas experiences. Then I spent the next five years without too much pressure (or with insignificant pressure that I thought was a big deal at that time). It is deceiving to live in the bubble of an ivory tower. Looking out, you feel you are above it all, but real life takes more stamina than finishing a dissertation, which I was whining about for little reason(see my previous blogs for apparent evidence). I think now it is time again to strive to learn new stuff rather than sitting on my old cultural capital.

Before I started working, I thought I had all the skills in the world to be successful in the real world. I took pride of my sociological learning and tried to stick with it whenever I could. However, the past half a year taught me something else. I have realized two important things. 1) I am usually not the smartest kid in the room. 2) If I stick with my current job, I will be able to learn my way to be as smart as I want to be. While I still takes pride of my academic soul, I think it is time for it to take a back seat and give more open-mindedness to all the other "cheaper" and "shallower" knowledge.

So what is the moral of story? Well, in the end, it is not really about work, it is able to be better than an old me. Work skills eventually translates into life experiences, and I want to be a better person. To my readers, this conclusion looks eerily similar to my last post's punch line. My hat off to this. It is not an intelligent design. It just happens this way.