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The only thing that resulted into this was the notion you had in mind ever since you were little, that in your life there is only one thing, one career which was meant for you—it is the only thing that you were supposed to do to complete the mission you were put up with on this earth.
By that, I can feel the frustration you had on the first college application results—you were not selected for the major you wanted—competition knocked you down (your grades didn't match up). You tried in the next application rounds, but in the end, still you didn't get the chance. As you were supposed to get into college, you chose an unplanned Plan B and shifted to another major. From there, now we can see you are studying a different major and not the one you wanted.
What am I worried about?
The words and self-talks you have had ever since—you feel karma has just played tricks on you and now you have to live your life miserably without studying and doing the thing you thought you loved from the start.
The way you act and approach your studies ever since—you hate this every day in your college life, and it has been dictating how you react to everything you face in your studies.
All these degrade your performance in college, and this is a bad sign—as you don't approach your studies wholeheartedly.
Whatever the circumstances of your life, if you have ever thought about having success in your life, if you ever dreamed about doing great things; The way you have approached your new major ever since is the only weakness which will prevent you from reaching there. I know the solution is to stop talking down on yourself and stop doing your studies recklessly just because you didn't want it from the beginning, but I want to take you first on a journey of truths and then we will come back to this to emphasize it even more. Here we go:
What you have lost might have just been an illusion you were living.
You might say I really loved this major so much, but underneath it might have been us (the people around you) saying we really want you to study this major.
How?
"You are the person I care about; I always want your future to be full of success" words like this may be coming from your parents mostly, your relatives, even your close friends. But the other meaning of these words has always been "I don't want you to do anything full of uncertainties"—specifically, "we don't want you to do jobs with less pay as you will suffer from poverty." This is not a bad thing of course, but from here came a list of "famous" majors which are thought to be the ones to remove this "poverty"—they were known in that all time since you were little, or as a surprise, even new ones may evolve now as the trending ones and the most paying jobs—soon you will be seeing them in the list of the "must study" majors.
Also, this might have been in this version too; you like a certain major as deep down you think you will look cool to others—but the truth is "us people" we will see it as cool as it is among the things we already know they are the "must have" special things with more pay—they are the majors from the list of "famous" majors. You want to look cool from what we have already defined to be cool—so you are doing what we told you to do.
These majors were the only things you heard about ever since you were little, these were the things which you were told that they are the coolest things to do, you heard your peers talking about them, these were the default recommendations you received, as a result you assimilated them in your whole life thinking that they are the right one for you.
Now think carefully: Was it your decision to choose this major or was it a decision made for you indirectly? If you really didn't make that decision from the start, why live in agony that you didn't get to study the thing you "thought, you really loved"?
There is something trickier about passion.
What we normally thought was that there is an already pre-installed passion for us about something, and our task is to find that special thing and when we get it our life will be complete and full of happiness, but going that way is rarely successful, because you will never be sure that the thing you say you love, if you really love it and especially for students you won't be sure as the thing you are saying you have passion with, you have never even tried them (it is just theoretically to you for now). What scarier to this is that the thing you say you love you might not love it again in the future—you will see you start to love other things as you get more exposure—and as you will not be able to uncover everything, the journey to find the one thing you only love is an endless journey.
The feeling of love is a by-product of doing, the outcome of you interacting with something—something you have in your hand, something you have experienced and found joy from it, it is not something which is imaginary before you even have it.
So, if you say you loved that major, are you sure about that or was it just imaginary? If that's so, why cry now even though you may end up loving something else?
Anything can turn out to be great than you could have imagined.
Mostly in every sector there are great people in it, there are people who have been successful on it. Yes, and to be on this spot of been great it didn't just appear to them, it was because they also have something great in them—they have something very rare and valuable that has made them to be illegible to that spot—as they are in high demand for their skills.
Few other careers are mostly shining as a result blinding others so as we can't see the really value and success one can get from them too, mostly this is because the "famous" ones are the ones mostly making quick cash and that's why most people will recommend them and they are not even aware that there are others which can also make a tremendous amount. The key here for success even more in any place is to be more valuable in what you do, identify what is the real deal in your sector and work hard towards that—to be good in it as the success mostly comes from things like that.
As a surprise too, we always end up loving what we are good at—love is the byproduct of doing, that is where true love comes from—because if you are good and become more valuable you are the one who will have a say in what you do, you will control it the way you see it should be, you will have complete control of your life, you can decide what to do with it. Who doesn't fall in love with something like this? —who doesn't imagine his or her dream job to be like this? But this is with a pre-condition of you to be the run-to expert, which means you building up your rarely valuable skills first.
If you can turn this new major into something you will love and something which will bring value to you the most, why living like this now for something which you can also get somewhere else and it can even be more?
This is one of the many dots you are collecting.
You can't say the job you will have will be your career to the end of your life, there is a point you will surely change path, you are still young now and shouldn't think that once immersed in one thing it will be "that's it". One day you can be a singer, athlete, technologist, a writer (like me hahaha) and anything else, when that change occurs your uniqueness for what you have studied now, or for what you will do later will contribute to your overall creativity, the way you will discover new things and contribute. It is not a waste for this major you are in but it is part of the pre-requisites needed to be compiled together with other things later on in your life to make something meaningful.
If you can have something like this in the future why waste it by being partially on your major right now? Do your activities wholeheartedly, know everything as you will be much more valuable later on, this experience will be one of the unique characters you will have among your peers which will drive you somewhere far you never even thought of, so value it.
Back with the emphasis:
You come to see that there is this something of "randomness in life" nothing is clear, anything can happen (even new things you never even thought about), your life is not set yet, especially if you are young, anything you pass through right now can be an ingredient for the next big thing we will see in the future. As you can make most of the things you do to become great and end up loving them, what the hype of crying every day that you didn't get to study the thing you "thought" you loved.
Whatever the chance you get now use it effectively now, do it wholeheartedly, be grateful for the big chance you have got, and fight hard to make a great work out of it, that will be your own strength on the coming future. Yes, it's true you didn't want to study this major, but the way you handle this might be the only weakness preventing you from reaching the great life in the future.
#moreExposure #buildUpSkills
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Thanks to Stivin, Elly, Joyce and Malick for reading drafts of this.
Nice advice I have got from the content🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻