A young father struggling between career growth and spending time with his newborn child recently turned to entrepreneur and content creator Ankur Warikoo for advice. What followed was not the usual answer about balancing work and family, but a completely different way of looking at difficult life choices.
The man explained that he was stuck between staying in his current job close to his wife and three-month-old baby or accepting a new role in Mumbai that offered better growth, improved work timings and a healthier lifestyle.
His existing role had given him valuable experience, but the night-shift schedule had started affecting his health after becoming a father. The new job seemed attractive professionally, but it would mean living away from his family at an important stage of life while his wife completed her thesis.
Like many young professionals, he found himself caught between ambition and personal responsibilities, unsure which sacrifice would hurt less.
‘Are you choosing, or just reacting?’
Instead of directly telling him which option to pick, Warikoo questioned whether the new opportunity was something he had intentionally pursued or something that had simply appeared.
“Did you apply to the Company Y role, or did it come your way?” Warikoo asked.
The young father admitted that while he had been looking for change, the specific opportunity had unexpectedly come to him.
For Warikoo, that answer shifted the entire conversation. He suggested that many people begin treating every opportunity as a decision they must make, even when the option may not truly match the life they want.
He pointed out that people often confuse availability with alignment and end up building their future around opportunities that were never fully right for them.
“If you had to craft the ideal role, this may not be it,” Warikoo said.
According to him, the real issue was not choosing between two paths, but trying to force a future from options that both involved compromise.
Warikoo’s ‘Take Neither’ advice
Rather than asking the young father to choose between career growth and family time, Warikoo suggested something unexpected: reject both choices and create a better one.
“Take neither,” he advised.
Warikoo encouraged him to see the job offer as proof that better opportunities were possible.
“If you can find this role, you can find any other role,” he explains.
“Go and choose the role you want where this conflict doesn’t exist. Use it as a sign to get the thing that you want,” he adds.
The entrepreneur said the lesson applies not only to careers but also to relationships, cities and major life decisions.
“This is true for jobs. Relationships. Cities. Everything,” he further adds.
According to Warikoo, people often spend too much time choosing between imperfect options instead of creating choices that actually align with their priorities and values.
“The right choice to make is between options that YOU have chosen for yourself. Not options that have been given to you, without your permission or preference,” says Warikoo.
For many working professionals juggling family responsibilities, career ambitions and personal wellbeing, the advice struck a chord because it shifted the focus from settling for available choices to intentionally building the life they truly want.