Be whoever you want to be or be a Doctor…. an Engineer… or a Lawyer….

While I am hermiting (the act of being a hermit) at home this winter break, my dad nonchalantly brought up this idea of how I could, you know, use my “smartness” to make some money for the family like “do stocks or something”.

This idea of “do stocks or something” “do stocks or something” and “do stocks or something” has then been lingering in my mind these past two weeks as I go through the natural course of hermiting which includes: contemplating about life, eat, poop, contemplate a bit more, eat, sleep, watch tv, repeat. You get the point.

(As you may conclude, this isn’t the first time I’ve hermitted before. One might even consider me to be a “sage hermit”)

Naturally, I thought to myself: I don’t want to be someone that “do stocks or something” or hermit forever for that matter. Therefore, part of this hermiting included digesting pages upon pages of self-motivating articles and videos of how to do better. My search thus far has landed me in places like http://www.thedolectures.com/ and https://www.brainpickings.org/, which are amazing websites that anyone and everyone should check out on a regular basis.

Majority of these works focus on digging deeper into your inner self, living in the present, doing what you love, being who you are, and understanding the values in life; All of which are noble topics of incredible literary and humanitarian values. However, there was a constant cognitive dissonance in my mind that begs me to question the very meaning of these platitudes and philosophical endeavors.

Why are these people telling me to follow my dreams, do what I love, be myself while my parents are telling me to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer?

Am I missing something crucial here or is something lost in translation through my native tongue from my parents? Surely, these two sides cannot be mutually exclusive? I could either love, be okay, or hate being a doctor, lawyer, engineer or anything for that matter. But, where do most people land on that spectrum? And if they hate what they do, why do they keep doing what they hate? (Obviously, a profession is not the single defining aspect of a person, but it is a big part of who someone is. It’ll serve for the sake of my hermiting needs)

What does it mean to be whatever you want to be?

How many people get to be whatever they want to be? What if you cannot support yourself by being whatever you want to be? We hear the success stories of people achieving their dreams, but what about the billions of others that did not. What happen to them? Nothing really….

There are those that work labor intensive jobs, tirelessly into the night to put food on the table as a means to an end. Are these people being whatever they want to be? Are they loving what they do? They surely can…and I wonder how people’s view of “life” differ between different kinds of jobs like “white collar jobs” and “blue collar jobs”.

There also seem to be a clear difference between what people need to be and what people want to be, and majority of people end up in the category of what they need to be…but then the natural question is:

Who gets to be what they want to be?

Is doing “what you love” reserve for the highly educated? the Steve Jobs? The high-born? the academics? the opportune? or is it something that anyone should be able to do? Is this the classic case of opportunity does not equate outcome? Maybe it is choice? Maybe not, and it is something that everyone ought to do? If everyone did what they wanted to do in this world, what would that world be like? A perfect utopia? In contrast, What would a world in which no one pursued what they love be like? A perfect dystopia?

Seemingly from what I can see, most people in the USA is okay with working a 9 to 5 job, filling the economic needs of our society. They are okay with having a comfortable family, and going on a family vacation from time to time to escape the discomfort resulted from the mundane repetitiveness of our daily lives.

We’re not living in a “Brave New World” nor a “1984”, so we’re doing okay but still the hermit me begs to question further: Would I be okay with that above lifestyle? Or am I suppose to want to be something greater? Am I suppose to make something out of this choice to be what I want to be when a great many people might not even have this choice at all? I go to MIT, which I am very lucky to, but am I suppose to do something with this “love” of engineering that I have, maybe not?

Maybe there isn’t just one thing, but great many things that I’ll be passionate about in my life. Maybe I can hope that to be case. Or maybe I haven’t got a single fucking clue to what I am doing, but that’s okay….

To be completely honest, maybe people just don’t care about these “Do what you love” and “the meaning of life shit” as much as a I do. I wouldn’t be too surprise, I guess? As you may also have realized by now that this post does not have answers to any questions. What it is, is an evaluation of these quintessential “life questions” with poignant and dissonant questions that I found myself having. I do, however, look forward to reevaluating these questions in 2016.

Anyhow, I’ll leave with these thoughts and this as I enter the new year and a new semester.