As a cadet in North Georgia in 2012, I was eagerly awaiting the announcements for branch night. For those who are unfamiliar, branch night is when you are finally told what job among 16 different career fields you will be assigned as an Officer in the U.S Army shortly before you graduate college. You request specific assignments and are told in advance your likelihood of getting any job. There was more than one incident of a person getting the job they wanted least, as much as there were incidents of cadets getting the job they wanted most.

Enlisted Soldiers contract for their careers – guaranteeing their job in the Army. Officers are assigned theirs based on some draconian human resources algorithm that I have neither the degrees nor the knowledge to explain here. What is essential, is that there are a few moments more suspenseful in a Soldiers career. I still can’t think of many moments that had such ambiguity in the outcome and such a significant impact on my life with what followed.

I was equally nervous. Despite strong junior and senior year academic performance, I squandered my freshman year doing dumb college stuff and was a solid middle-of-the-pack performer. I was at the complete mercy of “needs of the Army.” Feeling this anxiety, I turned to a senior advisor. I asked COL Phil Rosso, “What is the best branch to get?” and in his New York bluntness without missing a beat, he responded, “The branch you get.”

COL Rosso was giving me an early lesson in the Army that has served me well. His meaning was simple. Don’t worry about decisions you have no control over, and when the decision is made – own it. When I have strayed from this path, I have lamented about wanting to have that individual billet – or have felt slighted about not receiving ‘X’ because I have done ‘Y.’ My morale always reflected this envy during these moments. I always look back and say the attitude is the only thing that made the difference in my satisfaction at that time.

For young Officers who quickly learn that your individual needs, desires and even manner of performance are not readily acknowledged by the Army made of hundreds of thousands of Soldiers – go where you are told and succeed where you go. You avoid looking at any rank, any job as how to define ‘success’ anymore and instead look at how you are making the best of what you are given. Your morale and your unit will be better for it – two things I think we can all define as success.