Last week was the one year anniversary of my departure from Microsoft.
Although it seems so simple looking back, the decision was tough for me at the time. I thought about it for months, and asked people for a lot of advice.
I quickly noticed a pattern in the advice I received: the vast majority (90%) of people told me to do what they did. If they quit, then they recommended that I quit. If they stayed and the company and climbed the corporate ladder, then that was the path for me as well.
(Aside: The other 10% of advice I received was from people who gave me “anti-advice” — i.e. advising against doing what they had done. This is often the most useful type of guidance.)
I had three theories why this happened:
- Skilled Introspection: These people really understood themselves and what would make them happy, ultimately making the best choice for themselves.
- Cognitive Dissonance: Even if their is choice was the wrong one, they’ve convinced themselves that it was right. See also: Dan Gilbert’s talk on Synthetic Happiness.
- Charmed Lives: My friends, co-workers, and I are extremely fortunate and live a life of luxury compared to the rest of the world. Our “tough” life decisions are choices between the 99.99th and 99.96th percentile, the difference between the two is imperceptible so it really didn’t matter what was chosen.
One year later, I find myself giving the same type of advice — but what other choice do I have? I chose my path and have no idea how the others would have turned out. I don’t believe in my first theory — but the latter two seem completely reasonable to me.