I would be a surgeon. Yes, a doctor who operates on people. No, I am not going to withdraw my b-school applications, and take the MCAT. But if I could truly do anything I wanted, I would want to be a surgeon.
Being a doctor is one of those things that you want to do when you are a kid. You read about a doctor saving lives, and helping people, and you say to yourself that that is what you want to do when you grow up. However, growing up, all I wanted to do was to play golf for a living. And when I realized that I could not do that, I just found something that I was somewhat interested in, and where I would make solid money, a.ka. Wall Street.
I don't know when it is that I thought about being a surgeon. Not even sure why. My guess is that part of it has to do with the God complex. To me saving a person's life is as close as you can come to playing God. Not that I have any intention to be God. But to save a person's life would be pretty kool. Think about it - right now, when I look back at my day, I say, I sold ABC structured product to XYZ company, and made some $$. This certainly pales in comparison to to looking back, and thinking that I saved a guy's life. I saved someone's son, someone's husband, someone's father, someone's friend.
Come to think of it, how many of us live the dream that we envisioned as kids? I don't think anyone at the age of 12 wants to be a banker, or a trader. Or a C++ coder for that matter. Or work as a strategy consultant. Or manage a project. Or develop a trading system. Or sell one. Heck, as a 12 year old, I couldn't tell the difference between Wall Street and Ball Street. And yet, so many of us today do things that we never even wanted to do. We do jobs that we don't care about, but they get us the $$$. I read the most ironic article few months back - highly qualified doctors that end up working in healthcare banking or consulting - talk about the lure of money.
I have asked myself this a few times - why can I not be a suregon? It is not impossible, but there are several obstacles ahead. I would have to take pre-med classes, take the MCAT, go to med school, and study for 10+ years. I am not sure I have what it takes to be a surgeon - the commitment and the intelligence. Plus, leaving the $$ of Wall Street will certainly not be easy.
Maybe I should be thankful I have a job. And plus, the grass is always greener on the other side. I have a friend in med school, and he is constantly upset about the fact that he has ages to go before he will make anymore than than the minimum wage. He tells me that I should be happy to be making $$$.
Maybe he is right....
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Stop right there, sir!
I started undergrad b-school at the same time a close cousin of mine started pre-med. Back then he was studing to become the life saver, me, I was to be the greedy banker.
However, if you think about it, our job is to generate money. The ABC structured product probably saved millions of dollars for XYZ.
That money was used to pay salaries, taxes and dividends. Those, in turn, are used to cover up the ever expensive costs of medical care. The better we do our job, the higher the productivity, the higher the available money to spend on drugs, research, hospitals, and, why not iPods!
I don't know about you, but I'm not pursuing an MBA solely for the money. I'm doing it because I want to improve people's life. I want to give them the means to have access to doctors, leisure, safety and happiness.
Playing God is not about saving people's life. Is about giving them life.
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