The Crow Reborn

“Son, what do you want to be when you grow up?” I was three or four years old when I was first asked this question by my father. Like most other people, this question was repeatedly asked to me over the years. And like most people, I gave different answers for any different period. For a brief moment, whenever I was asked this question, I thought I knew the answer. However, as I grew older, I found it more and more difficult to answer the question, because I learned somewhere along the way that although it’s normal for people to imagine growing up and working their dream profession, most people simply grow up and be perfectly content working in an occupation completely different from their wishes.

These days I find out that it’s becoming more stressful for any young people to answer such a question. Most of the high-school students I know only know the world around them, which usually includes television, smartphone, and what their parents do. Their career goals are heavily influenced by their present culture and surrounding, but most of time, after they have a better understanding of a job’s requirements, they change their plans. They find out that’s it a world totally different from their previous expectations and most don’t like it. Sadly, some (if not most) of them simply waste their time by hating the world instead of trying to create a world they can fit in.

My case is, more or less, the same. Different career goals, including being a comic artist and a diplomat, were set on my mind over the years. And over the years one goal replaced another, depending on the situation and surroundings as I grew up (a voice suddenly comes out of nowhere, “What do you mean, ‘you grew up’, kid?” Ha-ha, very funny guys, you may jump out of that window now). I suppose that’s the way it goes, goals simply come and go.

Where am I now? Fortunately, I am right now with an occupation that I love. I wish other other people gets as lucky as I am, but believe me when I say that it’s not pure luck that got me here. There are three important factors, and they are:

1. I know myself
2. I learned about the world of works
3. I learn what it takes to do it better than other people

I owe the first one to the J-Dorama Tokyo Love Story. I saw a scene of a crowd of expressionless people going to work. They looked so much like robots and I think to myself, “Somewhere along the line, those people used to cheerful and playful children; happy and content with their lives. What went wrong? What turned them into such joyless rubbery working machines?” and I came up with the idea that they simply let their lives flow like a river, instead of making it like a dam. And it’s all because they don’t know who they really are and what they really want. That’s when I decided to learn more about myself. I took a semester break (unauthorized, of course) to travel alone. I thought that if I want to know myself, I have to see how I function with a bigger world with unknown possibilities.

What did I find? Only one thing and that’s that I like people. I vaguely concluded that I don’t want a job providing goods, but the one providing services. The two other factors simply follow the first one naturally.

So here I am, not really a rich man but well above average with an occupation I can enjoy. Am I happy? Without being as pretentious as saying that I am a happy man, and without being discouraging as saying that I am disappointed with my life, I can say that I am content with what I am now.

Oh, one last thing. Just in case you’re wondering what my answer was the first time my father asked that question, I answered, “A penguin.”

I still want it, though.

~ by edwinlives4ever on November 9, 2017.

Posted in Random Thoughts, Uncategorized
Tags: dreams, growing up, life