Cruising

I have ten minutes before work starts and I’ve convinced myself that I’m hungry (I’m not). Eyeing the pastries on display, I’ve narrowed things down to two options: the chocolate stuffed croissant, or the cake-looking matcha flavoured something (Idk). As someone who enjoys food a little too much, I know that choosing the wrong thing can have an irreconcilable affect on how my day goes, so making the right decision here is paramount.

Breaking things down:

Do I like chocolate? Yes

Is chocolate normally pretty good? Always

Can your really go wrong with chocolate anything? That’s a good one

Matcha it is. I’ve never had it before, so why not? Let’s try something new. YOLO. Explore the unknown, adventure, be uncomfortable.

I don’t remember when I became a subscriber to that school of thought, and I don’t think it’s a mentality I arrived at through personal empirical experience and reflection. It was one of those things that sounded really cool, and kind of resonated with me, so I went with it, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing-it’s probably one of the better philosophies to live by. Regardless, there are a lot of philosophies and practices that I’ve adopted (good and bad) solely because of emersion.

For example, I don’t remember the exact moment where I made the conscious decision to go university, it was definitely the best option for me after I finished high school, but that was a guided, heavily-influenced decision, not something I concluded would be best considering my personal goals and experience. Choosing engineering, I didn’t conduct intensive research into the field or what it really involved, I just thought it would be the best option because I liked math, science and aviation, and engineering would give me a decent chance of getting a job in those fields (or so I’ve heard). And besides, wasn’t that the point of getting a degree, and the preceding 18 years of school and extracurricular involvement? To appear impressive, but interesting enough, to get a job? Painting yourself in such a way to ensure security of future employment is another notion I (was) subscribed to from an early age, because (apparently) the measure of who I am, my ambitions, intelligence, and worth, all lay in my employability-to someone I haven’t even met yet.

Drifting through life today, I hear a lot of talk(complaints) about the things society tells us we’re to do or believe. Sure. But why do we blame society for the way we think? I thought this was the generation of “problem-solvers”, “critical thinkers”, and “entrepreneurs”, so by definition we should be the most independent among those who came before us, bold enough to forge our own path — Or is this just the newest trend? The new guideline for how to act, the one stop shop for how to become successful, (because that’s also apparently the goal). Who’s doing the thinking here? Are we listeners are or are we consumers? Goal setters or goal adopters? What are your motivators? Your dreams? And why aren’t you letting them guide you? When did they become unattainable, impossible and unrealistic? (If that’s what’s deterring you )

After a month and a half at my internship, I am convinced that there are no real limits to what we can achieve. Due to a miscommunication in my initial job description, I started this summer with no prior experience in the field I am currently working in (iOS dev), and generally, the timeline for most of my tasks has been:

Research -> Implement potential method -> bitter failure -> repeat

And after a few (generally many) cycles, normally at the point where I am swimming in frustration and seething contempt for my computer, something barely works, and that’s what I cling on to. That’s what gives me the push to keep going, and that’s how I’ve been able to keep afloat at work despite not knowing anything going into most of my assignments. From this I have concluded that the only barriers between ourselves and our goals are four questions:

1. Why am I doing what I am doing?
2. What do I want to do?
3. How am I going to get there? And most importantly,
4. Is it working? If not, how can I change? (iteration is key)

Forge your own path from the ground up, be alert, and keep moving forward. Disregard the paths that others have set up in front of you. There are not “options” in life, it’s a world of innumerable possibilities. You just have to decide which one you want to follow.