On Becoming a CPA

The first time I talked to someone about becoming CPA was sitting in my therapist’s office in Philadelphia. It would have been late 2011 and we were discussing what I was going to do with my life now that I had managed to escape working in coffee. I was enjoying my time at TD Bank and was steadily getting promoted, but being the compulsive planner I am I was already thinking ahead to the next potential move Daniel (my then-husband) and I might have to make. I did not know if that move would be by choice or compelled by disaster, but either way it was on my mind.

I had done some research about earning capabilities, employability, and the certification process different professions entailed. Being a CPA seemed to qualify one for a surprising range of jobs and generally help guarantee some decent earning power. The work would be reasonable and would not involve a retail-type customer service setting–it all sounded too good to be true.

So I told my therapist I was going to work on getting an MBA or Masters in Accounting and then become a CPA so that if D I ever had to move again I would be able to get a good job. Plus, the work available to CPAs seemed interesting enough–some CPAs even worked at the Bank, so there must be other positions at other banks I would be qualified for.

She applauded me, saying it was a great goal. In my own mind, it seemed far away. Theoretically possible, but far away.

When I found out I passed the final section of my CPA exam today, I thought back and realized it had been a goal four years in the making. It is one of the most purposeful things I have ever worked towards in my life.

Please do not mistake me saying “purposeful” as a substitute for “meaningful”. The most meaningful thing in my life is the people in it and the love I get from and give to them. By purposeful I mean I had a vision for something I wanted to do, I made a plan, and then I went out and did it. Even as I referred to myself earlier in this post as a “compulsive planner”, the type of planning I typically is related to short-term problem solving, putting out fires. Short term problem solving is a useful skill to have, but doesn’t always lead one to the same kind of meaningful existence as long-term planning does.

I work with lots of young men and women who are also becoming CPAs, who are ten years younger than me. I am amazed at their focus and determination. I could barely look a week ahead in my life when I was 22 and 23. If I had done what my father wanted me to do, I would have been a lawyer by the age of 24 or 25. This idea makes me laugh out loud–a 25 year old lawyer me. I can’t believe they might have actually let me into a court room. Or that I would have willingly gone into one.  Sorry Dad–it just wasn’t ever going to work out.

But for those same young twenty-somethings, I don’t imagine passing the exam is as meaningful for them as it is for me. Getting to choose what I was going to grow up to be when I was 30 instead of when I was 20 meant I had a better idea of what I was really cut out to do and what was important to me. I did not take the exam because of someone else’s expectations for me, but because of my expectations for myself.