“We’re not on planet Earth to get jobs. We’re on Earth to solve problems for ourselves and others.” – Hank Green
The cultural stress about opportunities and about life in general started really early in my childhood. I always believed that education is a key to a sustainable and productive life in a consumer-oriented world. I graduated and they told me “The world is at your feet, what are you going to do now?” After graduating college with a bachelor of Science. I decided that I don’t want to wake up every day and do what I studied anymore. I didn’t know where to start, I also didn’t want to get any sort of a job just because it’s the norm after graduation. I faced a paradox of either going through the unknown and take risks, or do the norm and lose my passion to add value in this process.
Job advertising boards kept telling me to pursue my dreams by acquiring a job. I didn’t know back then what change I want to leave and I also didn’t want to fall in an infinite loop of wasting my life in an office doing nothing but staring at the clock. We all got this advice from people on how it’s okay not to love what we do in our daily life, and how it’s all about building a resume or a career. I didn’t believe in that. I also didn’t romanticize “Career-shifting” as a cool and trending idea that young people do these days. I’ve learnt one thing after graduation which is life is not a job training program. College is just a tool through which you acquire some skills and to learn how to be better at stuff. Also spending 4 or 5 years studying something is not the end of the world, in fact it’s valuable somehow. The stress about getting into a field or having a job is so intimidating, it’s like picking a major for life.
Working for a cause and being passionate about creating a change in a certain field was also an intimidating idea for me. I don’t think anyone deserves to go to an office every day with the urge to slam their heads to their computers. Our time is very valuable and so is our passion to create. A lot of jobs are being automated these days and it just makes me feel like we’re a bunch of robots getting paid at the end of each month, except that we’re not as efficient and as precise. We’re just hiding behind words as “passion” and “social causes” as walls to hide our fear of not being worthy.
The past three years of my life have been a whirlwind, and at this point I think I care about telling stories for the environment, and I think it’s something that I’d wake up everyday to fight for. I hope I’m finding a way to create meaning to my life and to view every day as a learning opportunity in itself. I know that passion is not a plan, it’s a feeling, and feelings change. 