impressions

You find your passions by impressing yourself, not others.

I always hated when people asked me what I wanted to do during university. Frankly, I didn't know what I wanted, in fact, I wasn't sure I even wanted anything at all. I was angry that it seemed like people around me had it figured out and I hadn't. I didn’t know it then, but I simply wanted the certainty I saw in the people around me. People had their thing, and all I had was this corporate job that I was convinced would be my panacea.

It was not.

With the new job came a whole new host of problems. Half a year in, instead of reveling in “making it” by landing a job on wall street, I was unhappy. This unironically blew my mind. I couldn’t get my head around this. I literally did everything right. This was supposed to be the American dream. Everything I had been taught by my parents, my community, and society at large, I had done what they told me to do and yet I was still unhappy. How dare I feel this way.

And that was it.

Frankly, I was just too concerned with impressing my parents and the people who follow the traditional path to success. I was doing it for someone else, waiting for a reward or compensation. I was waiting around for some perceived justice because I thought the world owed me my promised share of happiness and contentment for doing what I was told. There is no such reward mechanic like this.

You don’t get a prize for “following all the rules”.

In the interim, I’ve learned that I’ve got to make my own happiness. There won’t be much in my life if I don’t actively seek it out and create it. I’ve been embracing some of my old childhood joys like music and skating, I’ve recently decided I want to be able to land an axel again. Will my parents be impressed or will it help me get a raise? Probably not.

But I will be. I think that’s what matters in the end.