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  <h1 id="title">Technical Blog 7</h1>
  <h2 id="sub">What is the price on your soul?</h2>
  <h4 id="date">February 8, 2015</h4>
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      Last week my cohort and I reflected on stereotypes and stereotype threat. Now, we're asked to examine ourselves and determine our values. What is important to us? What do we think is important and what really is? Before Dev Bootcamp, I had a lucrative job in the finance industry. I was an Associate at a Private Equity firm making investments in energy infastructure. I was financially secure and good at my job. One thing that I was not was satisfied.
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      Finance is notorious for demanding that those in it devote their youth to the availability of their work at all hours. The hope is that in exchange, in your later years, you have enough financially to be able to step back. What I realized is this belief is misplaced confidence. Those most successful in finance are those willing to sacrifice and devote everything in order to close a deal, make the sale or learn about more about a trade.
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      I started to realize that my job was not fullfilling. While I don't expect work to be my sole means of fullfilment, I became dis-content with my position. The things that I value in a career are intellectual pursuit, work-life balance and societal advancement. I did not believe the finance industry was in line with the things that I value.
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      What I value most of all is balance. In order for me to grow in a career, I must be able to pursue interests outside of work. It's where I draw my sense of purpose and inspiration. Any field that requires one to be boggled down by the endless tasks of bureaucracy, leads to a form of tunnel vision, where one is unable to think creatively beyond one's confines. I believe this is counter-productive. I believe that outside inspiration is just as important as internal introspection especially in a creative and engineering industry.
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      While I don't believe this is true for everyone, I do believe that what is important, is that you choose your values over everything else that may seem important at the time. Things such wealth, prestige and even ground-breaking technology are all things that are impermanent. I think what is more important is that you choose the morals and culture that suits you best.
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      In this blog I was asked to share the last piece of advice that I shared instead, I'll share with you a quote that's had a lasting impact upon me. When asked "What thing about humanity surprises you the most?", the man answered "Man... Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived." - Tenzin Gyatso the Dalai Lama
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