Within the past year, I’ve started seeing a common pattern of thinking being forced onto teens graduating high school and trying to figure out what they’re wanting to do for a career, and that is, they need to figure out what they’re wanting to do quickly and go to university for it. There’s no sense of patience being deployed at all, which is resulting in so many kids going thousands of dollars into debt for classes that they’re not sure they want to take and being overall unhappy with their lives. All because they were rushed into making decisions.
I personally have a completely opposite approach on this. So let’s quickly talk about that…
I believe it’s important to stay patient in finding out what you’re wanting to do for a career. When you talk with people who are 30, 40 or 50 years old, they all say that they still feel “young”, and I’m heavily interested in that concept and think it’s an important thing to recognize. If I’m going to feel like I’m still 25 years old at the age of 40, that puts things into perspective for me and completely changes my mindset on the way I operate. It shows me that there’s lots of life to live and if I’m only 20 years old, it’s ok to not know what I’m wanting to do with my life.
Kids today feel like a 38-year-old man is just ancient, which then makes them rush their decisions. Maybe they’ll go on big trips, spend money on unnecessary things, or waste thousands of dollars on a degree that they know won’t make them happy. When they could’ve realized that they’ll still feel young when they’re 35 years old, do everything that they wanted to do when they were 23, and still have plenty of time to do more amazing things in their life.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m very empathetic to people’s situations and everyone has different desires, but as for myself, I know what I’m wanting to do, which I’m blessed for and I don’t want to waste that opportunity. I want to stay patient, sacrifice my early years to building my business and position myself to succeed, and then do the things I’m wanting to do later on in life.
There are so many little rabbit trails I could go on here, but we’ll get to those in the future. For now, I just want to express my outlook on how I’m approaching my early years, and think it’s a mistake for people my age to try and rush life. Honestly, you have time. Stop thinking you’re going to be too old to do the things you’re wanting to do now and reconsider spending so much money on trips, degrees (unless you know what you’re wanting to do for a career) and materialistic things. Instead, take the time to learn who you are and just try different things to see what you like. Long term, you won’t regret it.
In the end, I believe patience is what most people are lacking, and if they deployed just a fraction of it, their lives would improve tremendous amounts. I really appreciate you giving me your attention for these few minutes and I definitely don’t take that for granted. I hope I was able to express my thoughts clearly in this article and get you thinking a little more on this topic.