I wrote this as a kind of affirmation for myself that I have at least 5 things going for me at the moment and to convince myself that all the resources I need to advance in the game of life over the next few years, I already have.
“Things in my life that could change my life”
Passion
“Follow your heart”; “find a fulfilling career” and “do what you love and you’ll never have to work a day” are relatively new ideas that have only really gotten going in the last couple of decades. Having economic prosperity by way of a satisfying career had never held any importance to preceding generations, but still, these catchy slogans and delusional expectations of the future have somehow found their way into the fabric of our (young people’s) lives today and constantly pop up in the millennial manifesto.
As a person born in the early ‘90s, my subscription to these beliefs during my childhood happened by default. On top of that, having been subjected to brainwashing throughout adolescence, I find myself studying my reflection in the mirror at age 21 years and 5 months old, thinking that I am special and believing that I am an outlier. Completely oblivious to the fact that everyone else had been exposed to those same sacred messages from the media, I admit a sense of higher purpose, a desire to remake the world, to create my own laws, and live by my own principles.
But what exactly happens when these concepts are applied outside of a chick flick?
Figuring out what you enjoy doing and then finding a way to get paid doing it is tricky business. Many people – myself included – sit around convinced that if only they could turn their yoga hobby into a fulltime job, they’d finally be happy. When in reality, doing an activity all day long and depending on it for survival could suck the playfulness and enjoyment out of it.
I don’t want to sound like a brat, though that may be unavoidable. Ultimately, I think that if the option to “earn a living doing what you love” is available to you without too much force or an exorbitant cost, go for it. Because you’ll be doing it for at least 8 hours a day for at least 5 days a week – considering that the economic model of retiring at 55 with a pension is gone and the likelihood of inventing something Facebook may want to buy is slim – for at least the rest of your life.
Talent
Are we born or are we made? Things like piano, ballet and Math may come much more naturally to some as compared to others, but it’s a common misconception that talent is innate and comes solely from within the individual. This observation only explains the variance in talents. For a large part, talent needs to be nurtured over time and can be influenced by a myriad of external factors ranging from societal, cultural and economic, to name a few.
So take comfort in knowing that if you’re not completely retarded at it, it’s only matter of X hours before you become an expert at it. *X = 10,000 hours of practice – number of hours you’ve put in to date (Malcolm Gladwell)
Education
With tuition fees getting more painful to afford, a growing number of people with degrees they don’t need for their job, even more people taking up positions unrelated to their major, and the evolving landscape of our global economy, the necessity of a degree to be successful today is questionable. To be totally clear, a degree from a distinguished university is always good to have under your belt. Skipping university (or dropping out) may have worked out for Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, but it’s definitely not for everyone.
Some industries require a bachelor’s at minimum, period.
If I’m looking to get my car fixed, I’m just as inclined to get in touch with the guy who’s been working on cars his entire life with his dad as I am with the guy who paid for an education. If I’m looking to get my body worked on, whoa… Hold up, that’s a whole new ballgame.
The question is not whether or not we need a bachelor’s degree. It’s whether the job we want requires it, because not everyone is running the same rat race. Some careers do. Some will just be more convenient to pursue with a degree. Others simply don’t care what our papers say as long as we can get shit done.
- If you’re interested in becoming a lawyer, a job in the STEM field or any other academically-focused trade, the no-degree route isn’t for you. Sorry.
- Many creative jobs will look for a level of training, but if you can produce something cool, somebody will be impressed and want to hire you. And if you know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody, somebody will also hire you.
- Blue-collar work is another sector where formal education is often forgone in favor of on-the-job training or apprenticeship programs. If your life’s goal is to be the best electrician you can be, chances are that taking out loans and pledging 4 (or more) years of your life to university won’t be necessary. Learning is our responsibility and teaching ourselves in the Information Age couldn’t be any easier.
At the end of the day, higher education is only a means to an end, because the proving grounds are in the real world. We don’t leave a mark in the world as a passive student.
Confidence
Post-WWII, society had developed protocols, procedures and processes for everything. I won’t go into great detail because world history was never my best subject at school, but basically everything was crap and then some guys dropped a couple of bombs in Japan and almost all the Jews got killed by another dude with only one testicle and then everyone decided to get really, really organized with their stuff.
Majority of us have grown so acclimatized to how aspects of our lives have been classified into tables, plotted onto charts and fitted into tidy lines, that we don’t always realize that what we’ve essentially done with all the red tape is to put ourselves into boxes. In time, we find ourselves running up against the invisible walls of such boxes constructed by our particular preconceptions of “how things should work”.
We are accused of being lazy, selfish, entitled and rude. Older generations scold our lack of initiative and our apparent expectation of being shown through, but the wall is very real to us. Fortunately for us, these walls can easily be broken with some boldness and a change in perception – it’s all right to step outside the box. Especially when we have the skills, the passion and the connections to empower changes, challenge established traditions and update the rules accordingly.
Most of us will dedicate our early twenties to finding the place we will fill in this world. It’s a riddle of life containing a limiting presupposition, which suggests that we will eventually grow to fill a spot already provided and predefined, which is a formidable thought for a twenty-something such as myself. Taboo, motherfucker!
We’re fired with passion, but the odds in society are against us – incentives misaligned, consequences neglected, methodologies adopted with little consideration. This may come off a little strong, but it almost seems as if we’re coming of age into a world that doesn’t have a place for us, that can’t fully utilize us, that expects us to wait idly on the sidelines and be thankful for placeholders like internships.
The first step towards overcoming these issues is having the knowledge that life is not a mere multiple-choice test. The second step is having the confidence and perseverance not just to change the options handed to us, but also create new opportunities for ourselves even if it leads us off the well-worn path. The third step is to do as Beckett suggests and “try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Luck
I don’t want to say too much lest I jinx myself. Also, I’ve run out of steam and feel exhausted from writing this.
