What Students and Young Adults Can Learn from Farsighted
Choosing a major, a first job, or whether to move to a new city are some of the biggest decisions you'll ever make, and you're often making them with the least practice at making big decisions. The natural move is to narrow fast — pick the option your friends chose, or the one that feels safest right now — and to picture only the future where it works out, because imagining otherwise feels discouraging at a moment when you're supposed to feel confident.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
Map more than what's already in front of you
When choosing a major or a first job, it's tempting to weigh only the options a friend mentioned or the one posting you happened to see. But the decision also touches your finances, your living situation, people who depend on you, and paths you haven't even researched yet. Before narrowing down, deliberately map the fuller landscape of options and factors, not just the ones already on your radar.
A student picks a major because a friend is doing it and it sounds interesting, without mapping out job prospects, required coursework they might dislike, or alternative paths that fit their actual strengths better. Two years in, they realize they chose based on almost no real information.
Before a major decision like a school, major, or job offer, list out every option and factor you can think of for fifteen minutes, including ones you haven't seriously considered yet.
Picture more than the future you're hoping for
It's natural to imagine only the version where the choice works out — the internship leads to a great job, the new city feels like home right away. It's worth also picturing a version where it doesn't go smoothly, not to talk yourself out of it, but so you have some sense of what you'd do next if it doesn't.
A young adult moves across the country for a job, picturing only the version where the role and the city suit them well. When the job turns out to be a poor fit within months, there's no plan and no savings cushion, because that future was never imagined.
Before a big move or job change, write a short paragraph describing what you'd do if things didn't work out as hoped, before you commit.
Ask someone outside your usual circle
Most of the people you talk to about a big decision are the same age, at the same life stage, and likely to agree with your instincts. Before locking in a choice, seek out someone with a different vantage point — someone a decade or two older, someone in a different field, or someone who made the opposite choice you're considering.
A student decides against an unconventional opportunity after discussing it only with classmates who share the same conventional assumptions about what counts as a safe path. A mentor with direct experience in that field is never consulted, and the student later learns the opportunity was far more promising than their circle assumed.
Before a major decision, ask one person outside your usual peer group — an older mentor, a professor, someone in a different industry — what they'd want you to consider.
Keep an honest record and review it afterward
Early in adulthood, decisions come fast and it's tempting to just move forward without ever circling back to see what you actually learned. Keeping a simple, honest record of a big decision and revisiting it a year later — what you expected, what happened — builds a habit that makes every future decision, personal or professional, a little more informed.
Seeking outside perspective takes time and can feel intimidating when you don't know who to ask, while some decisions come with real deadlines like enrollment or offer windows. When time is short, reach out to just one person you trust who has relevant distance, rather than waiting for a wider search.
Name one thing, honestly
What's a big decision in front of you right now where you've only really talked to people who already think like you do?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
Before a major decision, ask one person outside your usual peer group — an older mentor, a professor, someone in a different industry — what they'd want you to consider.