A pattern I’ve noticed among new grads whether in tech, investment banking, and consulting is the need to join a role planning for the exit. This has sat with me for some time, not because changing jobs is wrong, but because I think we often default to naive reasons in the process.

Everyone has different values. My discomfort stems from how we rarely pause and reflect why we want to move. We default to the standard: more pay, more status, better perks, stronger brand. These are easy things to change that rarely address underlying dissatisfaction.

One approach I’ve taken to thinking about fulfillment is separating external and internal factors. Fulfillment emerges when these two are aligned — the environment has to provide the base, but you also need a desire to engage in it.

This simple framing stands out to me because it has mirrored my own experience. What I value most about my own work isn’t the title, name, or pay. It’s the culture of my team. I love the bottom-up environment where everyone cares about their inputs. Structure isn’t enforced because everyone has a desire to do things properly. It’s easy to ask questions, participate in discussions, and receive help.

Over the past few months, the scope of what I’ve been able to contribute to has grown a lot and there are so many interesting problems working at enterprise scale (managing and orchestrating roles and responsibilities is a problem in itself). Having a team that doesn’t expect me to rush, explains context, and creates space to learn by doing has made a real difference.

Even with all of this, comparison doesn’t disappear.

It shows up quietly: when hanging out with friends, when scrolling online, when thoughts naturally drift toward compensation, company names, or what someone is “doing next.” None of this is intentional (I’m guilty of this myself). But over time, these signals add up.

I’ve come to think of this as quiet hierarchies.

We don’t explicitly rank each other, but we do it implicitly. Certain roles sound more impressive. Certain companies carry more weight. Certain paths feel more “successful,” and we often assume that automatically means someone is doing “well.”

I found grounding and reminding myself that success is relative, not universal, has led me to not viewing situations through this quiet hierarchy.

While I’m figuring out what paths to go down next, I’ve learned that fulfillment has come less from craving novelty and more from balancing internal and external factors and shifting from a vertical lens (hierarchy based) into a more horizontal lens (equality + curiosity).

Interesting Ideas

• I didn’t set goals last year, here’s how it went - Mylene Mae: Mylene makes very high production short form video essays that offer tons of valuable advice. Mylene explained her approach to this year: while it was good to go with the flow, she discovered that she thrives when attaching herself to obtain purpose and meaning. She also addressed setting input based rather than output based goals.
• What you must know before AGI arrives - Po-Shen Loh: I love content that addresses actionable principles. Interesting topics such as the impacts of AI on human creativity, how we should re-approach education, focusing on value creation, and thinking critically are all essential skills I think we should all embody moving forward into a world where AI will be integrated into daily life.
• Are Low Expectations The Key to Life?: I’ve read both Poor Charlie’s Almanack and Same as Ever this year and this blog post highlights the key insight from those books on how happiness is based on the gap between our expectations and circumstances.