Treating this question as something to solve once, with one correct answer, sets up a search that can never finish satisfyingly. The question is not poorly phrased, it is poorly timed: it asks for a final answer to something that only reveals itself in stages.
My own path did not follow a single answer. It moved from engineering and a corporate career at IBM, into building CitizenUp, into a fellowship with Atlas Corps, into impact measurement work at the Miller Center, into founding Impactedia. None of those moves answered the question completely. Each one answered it well enough for that period, and then raised a more specific version of the same question.
Looking for one definitive answer to what to do with your life usually produces paralysis, because the question is too large to answer honestly in one sitting. Looking for the next right move is a question you can actually answer this month.
Replace the big question with a smaller, dated one: what is the right next step for the next year, given what I know now? Answer that one, act on it, and let the next version of the question wait until it is actually time to ask it.
