TL;DR
- If you freeze when asked "Where do you see yourself in five years?", it doesn't mean something is missing in you.
- I believe there are three types of people who climb mountains:
- People who climb because staying below is dangerous
- People who climb because there's something they want at the summit
- People who climb because they love climbing itself
- All three are valid. There's no ranking — they just place value in different spots.
- Simply knowing this fact can lift two burdens at once: the anxiety of not having a five-year plan, and the urge to "fix" a teammate who doesn't seem to have one.
I used to dread career development talks
"Where do you see yourself in five years?"
Whether it comes up in a performance review, a 1:1 with your manager, or a job interview, you know this question. Have you ever just... blanked on it?
I have. Many times.
My coworkers seemed to answer effortlessly: "I want to be a tech lead," "I'm aiming for engineering management." Meanwhile I'd search my brain and find no clear picture of a "future me" — or worse, find five blurry pictures and no way to pick one.
And here's the frustrating part: I love this job. Precisely because I love being an engineer, not being able to answer made me spiral:
- Do I lack ambition?
- Am I just not serious about my career?
- Is something wrong with me?
Let me give you the conclusion up front: you're fine. Nothing is missing. You and the person asking simply belong to different types.
This article is for two kinds of readers: engineers who carry the same quiet anxiety I did, and the seniors and managers looking at a report and thinking "I need to fix that person."
The story of Ging, from Hunter × Hunter
Bear with me — I need to talk about a manga for a minute.
Hunter × Hunter by Yoshihiro Togashi is one of the most beloved manga in Japan, serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump (the magazine that gave the world Dragon Ball, Naruto, and One Piece). If you haven't read it, the English edition is published by Viz Media, and the anime is streaming pretty much everywhere. Mild spoilers ahead for volume 32.
In that volume there's a scene I've reread more times than I can count. At the top of the World Tree — a tree so tall its crown pierces the clouds — the protagonist Gon finally sits down and talks with Ging, the father he has been chasing for the entire series.
Gon asks him: "What do you want, Ging?" And Ging answers by telling the story of why he became a Hunter.
Long ago, Ging desperately wanted to enter the royal tomb of a certain dynasty. But it wasn't a place you could just walk into — only a trusted organization would ever be granted access. So at fifteen, Ging founded a nonprofit and spent two years surveying and restoring the site. Friends he'd met online supported the project for free.
And when he finally set foot inside the tomb he'd dreamed about, Ging realized something. The happiest moment wasn't laying eyes on the tomb's long-hidden "truth" —
"It was when we looked at each other and shook hands, the friends who'd wished for this together."
The thing more important than what he wanted had arrived before he got what he wanted. The truth inside the tomb, he says, was just a bonus. And then Ging gives Gon the line that fans still quote today:
"You should enjoy the little detours. To the fullest.
Because that's where you'll find the things more important than what you want."
Source: Yoshihiro Togashi, Hunter × Hunter Vol. 32, ch. 339 "Silence" (Shueisha; English edition by Viz Media).
When I first read this, it hit me hard — because it put into words something I had vaguely felt my whole life.
A side note
I realized later that this scene is a beautifully constructed nesting doll. Gon himself has spent the entire series climbing toward one summit — "meet my father" — and what he actually gathered along the way (Killua and his other friends, his mentor Bisky) became his real treasure. And the conversation itself takes place, literally, at the top of the World Tree. Gon reaches the summit, and what he finds there is neither glory nor treasure — it's a lovely, rambling chat with his dad.
Come on. That's just perfect.
My own detours
Two examples of why this resonated so much.
1. How I travel
When I travel, I pick the main destination — and deliberately plan almost nothing else. Not where to stop along the way, not where to eat.
Why? Because every trip, without fail, the road throws something interesting at me: a place I didn't know I wanted to see, a conversation I didn't know I wanted to have. I leave blank space in the itinerary precisely so I can grab those. As a wonderful side effect, wandering together has deepened my relationship with my family more than any landmark ever did.
Honestly, the time we spend later saying "that trip was so good, remember?" might be the part I love most.
In my travels, the destination ends up being the bonus. Exactly like Ging.
2. How I became an engineer
The second example is this job. I originally became an engineer chasing a dream: "I'll become a great engineer who builds great systems." I wanted to be, let's say, a 10x engineer.
But once I was actually in the field, what became precious was something else entirely:
- The sheer fun of programming itself
- The joy of watching real people use software I built
Not the systems as such — the countless things that happened on the way to building them. Those became my treasure.
These days, what I love most about this profession is that product development lets you genuinely help someone, somewhere in the world. Of course, the goals my job asks of me are far more concrete than that. But the fuel that actually moves me? It's this.
The main point: three types of people climb mountains
OK, here's what I actually want to propose. I believe people who climb mountains come in three types.
Type 1 climbs because staying below is dangerous. The sea level is rising; stay put and you drown. So you climb. Survival-driven.
Type 2 climbs because the summit holds something they want. A legendary sword at the peak. A record to set. The value lives at the top, and the path is simply the cost of getting there.
Type 3 climbs because they love climbing. Of course they aim for the summit — that's what climbing a mountain means. But the main dish is the path itself. Ging is this type. So am I.
Translated into engineering:
- Type 1: "If I stop learning, my market value drops and I can't pay rent." So they study.
- Type 2: "I want to be a CTO. I want the salary. I want to be a committer on that project." So they push.
- Type 3: "Writing code is fun, and the things that happen while building are the best part." The summit just happens to be up ahead.
Same mountain — "learning technology" — but where each person places the value is completely different.
This is not a ranking
Let me be very clear, because I don't want to be misread: I am not here to evangelize "enjoy the journey."
Type 1's strength is reliability. Necessity is arguably the strongest fuel there is, and someone studying hard to feed their family deserves nothing but respect.
Type 2's strength is clarity. A clear summit lets you plan the shortest route backwards from it — and the people who leave dents in the world or set great records are, more often than not, this type. Answering "where will you be in five years?" without blinking is a genuine skill this type has.
And Type 3: they'll wander off the optimal route without a second thought, and from the outside it can look like "does this person even want to get to the top?" But the things they pick up on their detours have a way of compounding into assets later — that's their particular magic.
All three are correct ways to climb. The only fact here is that the value sits in a different place for each.
What happens when nobody knows this fact
The problem was never the ranking. The problem is not knowing the difference exists.
A Type 3 engineer faces a question designed for Type 2 people — "Where do you see yourself in five years?" is exactly that — fails to answer it, and concludes they're defective. That was me at the start of this article.
Meanwhile, a Type 2 senior looks at a Type 3 junior and sees "someone with no ambition who needs to be fixed." And the reverse happens too: a Type 3 senior tells a Type 2 junior "you should enjoy the process more!" and receives a blank stare. Both are acts of goodwill. Both are also impositions.
So, to those carrying the anxiety I used to carry: you are not weird, and you are not broken. There's nothing to feel down about. You've simply been grading yourself against a different type's scorecard. Freezing at that interview question isn't a lack of career awareness — it's that your values live somewhere the question doesn't look.
And to the seniors and managers thinking "my report has no goals, I have to change them": you probably don't. That person isn't refusing to climb. They're climbing the same mountain with their value placed somewhere different from yours. Try watching them once through the lens of "which type is this person?" — and things that looked like flaws may resolve into nothing more than a difference in type.
One caveat. If your company or organization implicitly endorses a single type, people of the other types will slowly start to feel like they don't belong. If that's you, it's worth genuinely considering your options: keep up the dialogue, try a different team — or make the jump to somewhere that fits.
Closing
Ging's "enjoy the detours" is, to me, an all-time great line. But if I recommend it to you as-is, I'm just committing the Type 3 version of the same imposition. So let me rephrase it as a question instead:
Why do you climb the mountain?
Whatever your answer is, own it with confidence. Just remember that the person climbing next to you may answer differently — and knowing that single fact can change how reviews, teams, and your own career anxiety look.
I wrote this for the past me who needed to hear it. If it reaches someone else carrying the same weight, even better.
So — which type are you? I'd love to hear in the comments.
