In Decision

He has just started the program. One week of classes are not even yet under his belt. Is now the right time to be asking? It is the only time, I suppose, but the uncertainty seems both late and premature. He wonders if this is the right decision, if the financial outlay will reap future benefit, if the career trajectory he imagines is just a fantasy. What of the girlfriend who wants to start a family, what of the student loan debt he already carries?

I walk him through a reasoned assessment of the costs and benefits. He has come to me for information not exhortation, and I provide it with care. Eventually, I lean back in my chair. This is hard for me. The lion in me wants to lean in and bare my fangs. Courage, man! Take the leap! Instead, I draw breath and offer up the deeper questions of his motivations. My restrained interrogation asks him to consider the increased credibility an advanced degree brings. For the kind of contribution he wants to make, does it help him to have that level of expertise in his field? How might the doctorate itself – aside from the depth of knowledge it requires – provide currency for establishing the future he envisions?

He is a builder of things, a doer, yes. But also, he contemplates. He explores. He questions. These latter gifts may be his downfall if he does not consume them in moderation. He can contingency-plan himself out of any plan at all. The allure of the right approach is one of the devil’s craftiest tricks. Security is an illusion, after all. Foxholes are safe. They are no place I would want to live.

In the end, I do lean in. I adjust my posture and my gaze by mere inches and tell him that this is his moment.  The door is wide open. None of us, not even he, has an endless supply of these. He has what it takes not just to do but to lead, to create, and to engage in the great conversation. He is at the threshold of a journey that few are offered and even fewer will complete. Scholarship and time and funds (meager though they may be) are on offer just for him. Starting now – and maybe never again – he can dive deep into the heart of what moves his world while also gaining capacity to provide for his not-yet family.

All of this is here, now, right before him. The investment may pay off and it may not. The question, of course, is not how to find the perfect way forward. It is how to choose a path suited to one’s feet, and to walk it wherever it leads.