What do you want to be when you grow up?

When we are young our imagination runs wild endlessly sprinting through the marathon of life with aspirations, inspirations, and hope of a better life. Flooding our minds with occupations and ambitious ideas, floating us down the river of our on hopes and dreams. When we are young we are not scared of our hopes and dreams; and at that time we truly believe they will come true. The world is ours and we let our imagination and creativity drive our passions. As we mature and age, we forget about these dreams, passions, and goals. Society tells us that being an artist, chef, or astronaut is unattainable and unsustainable. "Reality" plummets down on us with its heaviness shattering our fascinations and the divine lust we inhabit for our dreams. We opt for duller jobs in hopes of getting a steady income while we forget all about our passions and "unrealistic" hopes.

For the last 6 years or so, the questions of “What do you want to be when you grow up?” has become more and more prominent, haunting me with its persistence. The first question you are asked when you apply for colleges at age 16 is “what do you want to major in?”. At this point we have forgotten all of our passions and dreams that once inhabited our child mind, consumed and replaced by its enemy called fear. We have spent majority of our time in school learning a set of educational standards enforced by others in a system we've created. Yet, in the span of a couple of months, we have to decide what major we choose that ultimately limits us to focus on certain lines of work. All I can say is, I didn’t know exactly what to do at sixteen and I am still struggling to figure it out now.

I often find myself struggling between what I think society wants me to do, what others want for me, and what I feel in my heart I want for myself. In a tug of war between what I am supposed to do and what I FEEL I am supposed to do. After switching my major around a couple of times and taking a gap year off, I've come to realize that I will not be happy in life if I don’t pursue my passions. Only when I took a gap year, I was able to truly reconnect with what makes me happy and even explore new passions. I rediscovered my joy for traveling, writing, reading, and learning about other cultures. A seed of curiosity sprouted and I was here for it! Curiosity and inspiration is something I felt my education was lacking, something that could not be taught. As I began to read more, I learned more about myself and who I wanted to be in this world; my purpose, if you will. In the book The Alchemist, it says that everyone has a personal legend. It is important to follow your legend, and if you do, everything in the universal will help you achieve it. The only thing that holds us back and confuses us away from this path of pursuit of our personal legend is our own fear.

I am still in the process of figuring out my personal legend and trying to overcome the fear that holds me back, as reality does its best to remind me it's here. But, I know now that the best way to encourage and manifest my personal legend is by following my passions. Through following my passions and using them to help others is when I will find happiness. No amounts of money or material substance can buy an individual happiness. So why aim for a job that makes a lot of money and doesn’t fulfill my personal legend? At age sixteen, I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I "grew up". What I did know was: I wanted to do something great in my lifetime that would help others, to me that is what's great and true success. I knew I didn't want to succumb to society and get a 9 to 5 job. Now, at age 22 I fight to hold onto those beliefs and the vow I made to myself to continue to follow my personal legend and overcome my fear.

I wrote this post as a reminder of my efforts to figure out what my legend is and re-cement my own faith apart from my fears that it is not attainable. I hope it has helped you realize things about your life, the power of your personal legend and how you can obtain and strengthen yours. Passions stem from doing hobbies you love, our natural interests rooted in our innate curiosity. If you have no direction, start picking a hobby in something that interests you. After finding a hobby that inspires you, run with it. Harness your interests and evolve them as your strengths, and most importantly use it to help others. Through this process, you with fulfill your personal legend and find happiness through its healing capabilities.