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Justify What You Chase Or It Will Eat You Alive.
An excerpt from my personal journal during a metamorphic moment of my life.
August 16th, 2021–2:43AM
I am sitting at gate 36 of El Dorado airport in Bogota, ready to return to the U.S. after a long vacation and start the next chapter of my life. I love moments like these when you feel the imminence of a majestic change in life and the beginning of new eras.
Upon returning to the U.S., I will be living with my aunt for a few weeks in Houston. Two weeks after my arrival, on August 30th, I start working at Google. 11 days later, on September 11th, I move to Austin to fully start a new chapter. I know a world of possibilities lies ahead of me.
As I take a step back to soak everything in and reflect on the journey, I can’t help but feel an immense sense of gratitude and pride. The first thing that comes to mind is that I would not be in this position if it wasn’t for my dad. The sacrifice, the courage, the constant overcoming, and the restless effort to give me the opportunity to study in this country have been a fundamental piece of my journey.
And beyond him, I owe this to many more family members, friends, professors, mentors, and institutions that have believed in me. I will forever be grateful, and I can’t wait to pay everything back with compounded interests.
But I also recognize that there is a lot of my merit in the equation. The restless pursuit of my goals, my initiative to start several projects, my resilience upon countless failures, and all the things I did during my years at Morningside University brought me here. And for that, I am very proud.
Though at the same time as I feel pride, I also feel fear. I am scared not for the new things that approach, but rather I fear “softening” out. I fear getting too comfortable and not pushing as much as I did in recent years.
I also feel like there is a lot of expectations placed on me — both external (family & friends) and internal. And even though I think I know how to deal with external pressures (by, simply, not caring), I am worried about the impact of my own expectations.
