Integrations run the world. The world won´t run without you.
I know that just now you’re feeling anxious and questioning pretty much every decision you’ve made so far. Most people around you seem to know what they want in life. You, on the other hand, are decent in everything, even according to the teachers.
What you can’t fully appreciate yet, is the power of your thinking. You may not have got the best grades in math, but you did excel at languages. As a matter of fact, it’s one of your strengths to identify logical structures and reason your thinking. You may not always have the patience to learn every tiny detail by heart. Instead, you have an amazing ability to make out how the small and big ecosystems of both nature and society work and how different kinds of causal connections are established.
At this very moment, all I’m saying might sound insignificant to you. After all, there are downright math geniuses, pro-level athletes and future heart surgeons around you. Then there’s you, someone with a great desire to accomplish meaningful things, just not knowing exactly what and how. You’re doubting if you’ve even got what it takes. What if you aren’t talented enough at anything?
Had you seen yourself, me, about fifteen years later, you would smile in the mirror and hold your head just a bit straighter.
You would see that the work you’ll finally find your calling in, doesn’t require a single hat trick, dissertation, luck or the genes of a super(wo)man – but the same kind of curiosity, the ability to see the big picture and the deductive logic that made you unbeatable in Starcraft II, Master of Orion, Civilizations and XCOM2.
You get to affect the lives of millions of people from your computer even when you crave the seventh cup of coffee just to stay awake. You won’t make a living out of inspirational speeches, making new biotech innovations or directly saving human lives but with your determined every day work you are enabling all of this and more.
Alongside people like you, you help keep the road infrastructure and the air traffic moving so that people can travel and companies can provide their products and services.
You help ensure that the payment and voice traffic run smoothly, the electricity won’t shut off, the salaries appear on bank accounts on time, and the supermarkets’ shelves are always packed with goods. You help the postal service, online shops, and factories operate without running out of any crucial components. You make sure that the data flow and people can live care-free every day taking it for granted.
Integrations run the world. We won’t run without you.
You are an integrator.
Listen more to our podcast Integraattorit - nuo arjen näkymättömät sankarit (in Finnish)