Finding out what you don’t want to do for a living is still progress. It crosses a road off the map.

Elimination counts, even though it rarely feels like it. A summer in a job that turned out wrong for you produced real information, and there is no way to get that information except by going. The picture narrows from both ends, and narrowing from the negative side is faster and more reliable. It only looks like wasted time from outside.

Write down what specifically did not work rather than crossing off the whole field. The hours, the kind of people, the lack of anything to make. Those details are what transfer, and they steer the next choice better than a general sense of dislike.