Work, Career and Goals
Finally I have some time in between finishing my Calc I quiz and sleeping to wake up to do two engineering lab reports. So here I am, finally writing a blog post. I still need to fix this font size but adjusting to a new platform hasn’t been easy.
I hope this is legible.
As some of you may know, I was working towards a promotion at work. I wanted a different role at work because I felt like my duties were becoming redundant and robotic. In addition I felt anxious because all of my friends had just graduated college and looking for their first job of their career. I felt like I needed to start my career already or else I was going to be left behind.
I began working hard towards a new role and went through interviews and spent some time in role, only to feel just as unfulfilled and unhappy.
Not until now am I realizing that I have been placing my self worth on this job title. Because having a more important job with more responsibilities is some how supposed to make you more important or more valuable right? In return that’s supposed to make you happy because you get paid more and your life has some sort of meaning right?
I finally realized that I’ve been devaluing myself by placing my value on this damn job title and where I’m at in my career. I’ve been taught that unshakeable absolute happiness can never be found outside of yourself. But by placing my value on a job title I was doing exactly that.
So now I’m taking a step back to look at the grand scheme of things. What was it that I want to do with my life? At the end of the day I still want to create a positive impact in the world for the future generations. I want to become a founder of an international company where no border can have any bounds on the positive impact I can create in the lives of the people.
What do I need to do to accomplish my first milestone? Finish school. But my major, civil engineering, comes with a whole bunch of mathematics and science classes.
A big part of me dislikes mathematics because I’ve always struggled with focusing. It’s easy to just say, “I’m not a big mathematics person” and major in something relatively achievable for me like humanities. However I have a goal to accomplish and it can’t be done with out this degree. So I need to face this head on and triumph over my tendencies to succumb. In return, I’ll gain more confidence to face more adversities and win over and over again until I’ve accomplished this goal.
Maybe you might feel like you don’t know what you want to do with your life and that’s okay. Keep making the effort it learn something new everyday and you’ll find something that triggers your passion. It may take some trial and error over the course of years.
At this moment in time I know what I want to do with my life but it might change down the line. After I get my degree in civil engineering I might decide to go to law school to study human rights laws. Who knows? And that’s absolutely okay. Life is a long windy road with mountains, ditches and rivers but you have to keep moving forward.
The four big takeaways from this is that:
1. Job titles don’t mean shit. You decide what you’re worth. Don’t let anything else decide it for you.
2. Don’t compare yourself to others.
3. If you feel like you’re unskilled at something, it’s okay. No one is born skilled in everything. The difference is whether you face it and work to make it a skill. One of my favorite quotes is:
”Youth should not seek an easy path. No one develops in a pampered environment. Youth should instead seek out challenges and hardships, transforming them all into valuable assets as they strive to become individuals of outstanding character and ability” -Daisaku Ikeda
Because damn, that’s so true.
4. You have to keep moving forward and growing little by little everyday. Keep making mistakes, get back up and try it again.
I hope this can encourage you whether you feel like you’re stuck or lost confidence in yourself to achieve something. We’ve all been through it.
Just don’t forget why you’re doing this in the first place — it’s to be happy. If you’re going to be alive, you might as well live happily.