By Manon Chrétien

As long as you don’t choose

I remember that once, my sister and her boyfriend watched a movie ; she told me it was absolutely shitty and incomprehensible. As I’m a person who likes films and challenge, I wanted do decide by myself if it was indeed shitty. So I have watched it, and actually really liked it. It was not the best film ever in terms of story, actors, etc, but it was asking questions I deeply relate to. The title was Mr Nobody, I don’t quite remember the story because I saw it quite a long time ago, but one quote is deeply inked in my brain and I think is worth sharing and discussing : « As long as you don’t choose, everything remains possible ». I relate to this saying because I find it very modern, actual, quite specific to our generation. The « millennials » as they call us. 

Choice was the main subject of the film. I think nowadays (and actually since the beginning of the consumers society), that we have too many choices. In terms of flavor of yogurts at Sainsbury’s as well as in our career choices. For instance, it is way easier today to change studies without finishing them than it was for my parents. Moreover, a lot of new jobs are created everyday. We are given more and more options, paths to follow.

As far as I’m concerned, two main problems come out of this situation : first of all, we do not take the time anymore to know our options, we just learn the superficial aspects of everything. Then, young people tend to lose the taste of perseverance. Yes, as long as we don’t chose everything remains possible. But it is also necessary to realize that as long as we don’t chose, we are not actually doing anything. So we just keep on pushing the deadline to make decisions, to take control of our own life.

Of course, I include myself in this observation. I still do not know what I want to be when I grow up. I have so many different paths in my head, so many passions and things I like to do, that having to chose only one is really frustrating. Today, I want to work in the world of perfume, whereas yesterday I wanted to work in an art gallery, last week as a florist and last mont as a baker. But at school, we learn to challenge the brief, and is there any bigger brief than life (yes I admit, it is a bit cheesy) ? Why not challenge the rules then ? So for now, I’m focusing on creating a tailor-made job for me. I will create my own business, in which I will reunite everything I love about the careers I want to do. If the thing you want to wake up for everyday for the rest of your life does not exist, create it. 

One of our mentors at the SCA this week did an amazing masterclass about strategy. He said that in the end, strategy was all about chasing a path and sticking to it. In terms of marketing, but in our personal lives as well. But he added an interesting shade : you could have chosen another way, which could have been just as great. There is not only one way to go. Lewis Carroll said that as long as you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there. And he was so right. It is okay to be lost among all the choices that are given to us. But doing nothing under the pretext of being afraid of making the wrong choices is not worth it. May as well try one, fail, change, find a better way… In a nutshell : be alive.”