I expect that the root of my laziness comes from a lack of ambition, directly from not knowing what I want to do with my life or having any direction. If I have nowhere to go, why should I make any effort to get there? Because I don’t want to be here, that’s why. I don’t want to sit around forever in this meaningless, lazy depression. Although I know I don’t want to be here, that realization is not enough to get me anywhere. I want to be happy in my life; I want to have a purpose in my life. These are the extent of my life goals: Happiness and purpose. But you need purpose for happiness, and it needs to be the right purpose.
And before you say you can have happiness without purpose, let me say I don’t mean brief moments of happiness from a piece of entertainment. I mean the lifelong, “I enjoy what I do” sort of happiness.
Do I really need to derive happiness from my purpose? I’m sure many people have lived their entire lives with jobs that they loathe, but have still had reasonably happy lives. Well, they probably didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. They were probably stuck with their purpose, like it or not. An article from The Guardian titled “Generation Y: they don’t live for work … they work to live” explains that generations prior to 1982 have witnessed economic struggle and low job security. The priorities of earlier generations are radically different. They take any job they can get, so that they may pursue their purposes in family, wealth, community, and so on. Their work is necessity, it specifically is not actually driven by anything. It is a tool to accomplish other goals.
Those other purposes are fine and noble, but my generation–Generation Y–doesn’t feel the same level of necessity. We think it’s easy to get a job, and that money is not that important in the grand scheme of things. So if it’s so easy to get a job, and the pay doesn’t matter, we might as well do something worthwhile and enjoyable. This is my mentality to a tee, despite that fact that I’ve searched for employment but still haven’t been offered any. You’d think I’d learn. Well, now I have. Officially, I’m unqualified for almost anything, so I would take (almost) any job I can. But I still believe that once I have gone through college and gained work experience, I will have nearly unlimited opportunities. So why shouldn’t I pick one that I think matters most? Exactly. There is no reason I shouldn’t be allowed to be picky.
So after being presented with infinite options, I ask myself, “What will I want to do?” I don’t know. That’s the problem. Why? Why is there nothing that stands out amongst the others and calls to me? I conducted an online questionnaire to find out how other people found their calling. One anonymous person mingled in journalism, law enforcement, and early child care; ultimately deciding to become a teacher. It seems like the most obvious tactic to find a calling: Try some different fields, and see which one you like best. But I’ve tried a many different things, yet none of them are particularly fascinating to me. Have I simply not found my calling yet? Have I found it and not spent enough time with it? Or should I not bother because nothing will interest me and just pick any random thing?
It could simply be a matter of personality: I could just say, “It’s who I am.” A lot of my family seemed to stick to only one field of work fairly late in life, or, like my mom, not at all. Although I think she has been beginning to settle into something lately. She used to bounce around between jobs a lot, but she always did seem to have a drive toward arts and crafts. She used to do a lot of sewing, but now she’s become rather involved, -renowned, in fact- with the Freemont Arts community in Seattle. She spends her time and efforts in city wide projects, and manages to make a living selling puppets at the Pike Place Market.
She once told me that she was worried I was too much like her. She said, “I know everyone tells you to keep your options open, and I even tell you that sometimes. But if your options are too open, you’ll do what I did and never pick anything.” I can’t exactly remember, but I think she told me this about 5 or 6 years ago, right about the time she began to officially settle into arts and crafts rather than teetering on the edge of it like she had before.
This isn’t the only example of late ambition in my family, so there’s a good chance that genetics has something to do with it. But it just feels pitiful to say: “There’s nothing I can do about it and I am simply destined to have no destination.” Especially since there are other examples that prove the opposite, like my sister. She is of identical parentage, yet she is incredibly well driven. She is two years younger than me, and is confidant that she will become an anesthesiologist. At first me and the rest of the family thought she simply wanted to become stinking rich, but it turns out she actually has some passion for it. I don’t understand it, personally. I wouldn’t want that kind of responsibility over life and death. Actually, now that I think about it, the responsibility might be her favorite part. Still, the point is: She knows exactly what she wants to do, she knows what she has to do to get there, and she’s doing it. Amazing. The case may be that I got the other half of the gene pool, but before I take the easy answer and say, “I guess there’s nothing I can do about it, I am who I am,” I’d like to explore a few other possible causes.
While I’m still in that range of thought, I can’t help but think it might have something to do with how I was raised. As I mentioned, I was encouraged to learn about a lot of different things so that my range of options would be broad by the time I figured out what I want to do. This is true; I did explore many different things…briefly. I saw a lot of things, I tried a lot of things, I am actually quite lucky to have a number of unique experiences that most people cannot claim to; but all of them were extremely brief. I never had a day to day experience in which I developed a real passion for anything, just irrelevant events that were so momentary I couldn’t really become involved with any of it.
Well, I shouldn’t say I never developed any particular interest. The only thing I ever did, besides go to school, was watch TV and play videogames. I have often said (likely influenced by my lack of interest and emphasis on anything but entertainment), “Life is pointless, so you might as well enjoy it.”
I tend to rationalize everything too logically to find some divine meaning in anything. This “overrationalization” has caused me to believe that there really is no point to life. It’s something that just happens, it’s not there for some divine reason; it simply exists because it is bound to do so. Therefore, if there’s no point, I might as well enjoy it.
If my only interest is in entertainment, maybe I should simply pursue something in that field. As a matter of fact, my first genuinely explored interest was animation. I expect that this interest was a combination of my mother’s interest in arts and my father’s interest in computers. But after a while, my interest in animation thinned. I might have had more incentive to stick with it if I was getting paid for it, as if it were an actual career; and maybe if I had worked in scheduled, dedicated time rather than the very infrequent whenever I feel like it. I would return to animation, but by now I’ve been drawn to other things too, which dramatically complicates the situation.
Somehow, I’ve managed to develop interests in at least four recognizable fields, and god knows how long it’ll be before I find another. At least I know what my strongest interests are, but that’s only a small start. None of them interest me enough to pick one over the other. I keep hoping that a clear sign will come from one of them that says “choose me, I am your destiny.”
“Destiny:” A concept that has plagued philosophers for so long. What must a person accomplish in a lifetime? What compels a person to work toward that accomplishment?
Like hell am I going to get into that right now.
Instead of letting the topic of “destiny” get uncontrollably inflated, I’ll just say that everyone’s idea of what is important in life is different. So -it’s a little hard to tell in the mess of my mind, but- I’ll say that what is important to me is to have an answer. Not, “the ultimate answer,” but an answer to my calling; an answer to what it is I should do with my life. But I am nervous. I am nervous that there won’t be an answer, or at least, that it won’t be clear and I will miss it.
I’m waiting for an answer to come to me, but I know I have to make the decision; nothing will decide for me. In the questionnaire I conducted, one woman named Linda Hall was inspired to become a social worker, but she still made her own decisions. She recalled for me her story when deciding upon her career: She told me that she had become pregnant at a very young age, which –although devastating to a reputation in any time– was particularly devastating in the 60’s. Going through that rough time inspired her, she wanted to ease the burden of others so that they shan’t feel the same sting the she had felt. But by no means does this imply that an answer came to her; she still had to make her own decision. Nothing says that the experience had to inspire her; think about how many people were in a similar situation and did not take the same path. Although the opportunity arose, it was Linda that seized it, not the other way around.
I’ve had my fair share of unique experiences: I’ve lived in Mexico, I’ve been to the UK, I’ve written stories, I’ve animated shorts, I’ve lived off 2% milk for months at a time, I’ve been through school and a wide variety of classes, and countless other more momentary experiences. I’ve had lots of opportunities to be inspired. Alas, I have not been.
I’ve been saying that the whole reason I want that clear answer is so that I’ll know I’ll be doing something I enjoy, something worthwhile. But it’s a little bit more than that even: It’s so that I know I’ve picked the perfect choice. Not just one that I would enjoy, and it would be alright. But the one that would be the best. I don’t want to look back on my life when I’m between 40 and 50 and say, “wow, I really should have been an author. Physics is laaaaame.”
Perhaps yet another cause to all this indecisiveness is that I am scared to commit to any one career; the problem might be less about getting the perfect one, and more about not wanting to give up my opportunity to do anything else. That’s how I was raised after all; “Keep your options open. You don’t have to decide yet.” Maybe I should have decided. On the other hand, something better could still be out there, so it may be best that I haven’t decided yet. I have no idea.
If only I could do everything. I would never miss anything that way. I could be a Buckaroo Banzai sort of character, who is a rock star, physicist, author, and (hell, why not?) an animator. As cool as it would be, I don’t honestly see that working out very well: Pursuing any interest that ever struck me, somehow managing four to ten careers. Yeah, that sounds pretty cool, -with the exception of burning out at age 36 and offing myself.
Why am I writing about this? I doubt anyone wants to read about me complain about not knowing what to do with my life. And, as much as I’d love to, it’s not as if I’m going to suddenly have a massive epiphany and know what I want to do for the rest of my life while writing it. This essay is not the earliest piece of evidence that leads me to my calling. So what’s the point? Did I learn anything? …Did you?
You don’t need to know what you want to do right now. Keep your options open.
I’ve been told this all throughout my life, and it echoes in my head. But time has been ticking away, I need to decide sooner or later.
If I’m stuck now, why wouldn’t I be stuck later? What will be different in the future? Can I find what the difference is so that I might make it happen sooner? At the risk of sounding cliché, I will say: My hope is wearing thin. I want to know the answer -the calling, the preferred interest- immediately. Not having a direction doesn’t usually cause life to go on pause until you figure it out. If there is no direction, there is no motivation for anything; all your care and passion fades away, even the littlest of things don’t seem to matter at all.
At the very least, what I have done here is pinpointed more specifics about the problem, albeit, there are many of them. With any luck, that will help me fix the problem and come to some sort of conclusion. But, in truth, I am hardly interested in the problem. I am much more concerned about the solution. And I still don’t have it. I’ve been at this so long I’ve begun to convince myself there isn’t one. So perhaps I should spin a wheel and choose whatever career the pointer lands on. They all interest me and I can’t decide, so why not? Well, in fact, I would do that, except that it wouldn’t really be a ‘calling’ of any kind. I couldn’t possibly be dedicated and passionate to a randomly assigned result. I would be travelling toward destination, “I don’t care.”
Perhaps the answer will come in time. Maybe I just need patience. I look around, and a few others seem to fit with me in Generation Y, but for the most part it seems as though other people have everything in order. They know what they want to be, they know what they need to go to school for, they even know how much effort they need to put into each piece of work so that they don’t waste any energy on what isn’t necessary. I don’t have any of that. I have no idea what I want to be. I go to school because I’m bored, and need to do at least something. I misplace my energy all the time, achieving frivolous tasks and forgetting about things that are important. Now that I think about it, I suppose I do have one ambition: To figure out my ambitions. But it is excruciating that in these matters, which rely entirely upon personal preference, nobody can help you. There are no instructions to find your ambition, and you begin to have doubts that there even is an ambition that you fully agree with. Ho hum.
"Generation Y: they don’t live for work … they work to live." The ObserverThe Guardian. 25 May 2008. Web. 08 Dec. 2009. 25 May 2008: 30.
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