Another career-related story from my past also illustrates the old expression about not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I had been away from home for probably 8 or nine years when my mother (with whom I had had a terribly difficult relationship) contacted me to suggest that I begin buying some real estate in Southern California. We both lived in Los Angeles at the time and the area was at the beginning of what turned out to be one of its enormous run ups in real estate prices. At the time I was working, had a steady income, and a good credit rating, so it would have been fairly easy to have followed her advice and bought some real estate.
However, the combination of my apathy regarding such things, which I have mentioned elsewhere, along with my ongoing suspicion based on my difficult relationship with my mother, resulted in my ignoring her advice and ignoring the real estate boom.
Years later, I realized just how much of an opportunity I had missed by allowing my blind spots with regard to my family to influence my thinking. The simple fact is, regardless of my history with my mother or stepfather or anyone else, I could have made a substantial amount of money in a short time which would have helped considerably in some of my ongoing attempts to improve my career situation.
The question of just how much influence, if any, your family should have on your career choices is definitely a complex one and certainly not one that can be answered by anyone but you. One way to avoid the value judgment that is potentially such a part of questions like these is to simply look at the various possible outcomes and choose the one that you think you would be most comfortable with. Rather than say “you should always do what your family wants” or “you should never do what your family wants”, a possibly more neutral way to approach the situation is like this: if I do what my family wants me to do, what is the most likely description of the life I will be likely to lead? Then, do the same thing with the other alternative.
The trick is to be as objective as you possibly can in what is obviously a highly charged emotional situation. Still, if you are willing to be honest with yourself you can probably come up with a pretty good idea of what to expect depending on which alternative you choose. At that point it is simply a matter of deciding which alternative you prefer-and, of course, living with the consequences of your decision.
As I belatedly came to realize, arbitrarily not doing what someone wants you to do is really no different than doing it – they are still controlling you. True autonomy – and better long-run decisions – comes from considering all possible information. And better decisions generally lead to better outcomes.