A friend once told me: How you spend your days is how you spend your life.

It was one of those sayings that were so inaccurate that it became truth in imprecision. I do remember being like “what am i doing wrong today”… and spiraling into thinking what I should do with my life.

In my first year at university, I was a wide eyed college student. I could be anything! I was naturally confused why people were intent on choosing something so fast. I had barely understood what engineering really meant last year and people were calling themselves Biomedical engineers after one chem class.

I really did believe this. I was curious about everything and I took notes as if I was going to become that major. I look back today and I outlined notes for graphic design, artificial intelligence, filmmaking, mathematics, russian literature, etc. I really felt unbounded in the ways that I could learn and take control of my life. I absolutely do not subscribe to the idea that people have natural proclivities to certain skills. In my opinion, most people follow the markets ($) and eventually pigeonhole themselves into certain skills, which they then later on explain to themselves as natural skills and talents.

This started at a young age and I want to say there were a few unlocks for me:

1. Information is free and all accessible.
2. Therefore, if you have the curiosity and energy, you can learn anything yourself.
3. Given you can learn anything, you can make and create whatever you want.
4. If you can make and create anything, you can get whatever job or career you want.
5. Therefore, you should just choose whatever you want and never feel locked in.

Now, I’ve spent a few years doing that and I’m a little more matured. I still agree with my previous beliefs.

However, if you think about it, there are only so many things you can do. The ultimate limiter is not the gatekeeping of information or your natural talents or whatever. It’s actually just how much time you have. To learn, you need to do the thing a lot of times and you need to fail and get back up and make bad, cringey stuff and keep at it.

I’m in my early 20s. Assuming i live to the median age, I have maybe 30-40 years of maximal physical and cognitive abilities. This means that I have like at most 5-6 shots at things that I want to do.

If how we spend our days is how we spend our lives then I better get on it. I’m not sure about you, but I think I have been delaying gratification for a while. There are a lot of things that I want to do that I keep thinking I will do when I’m old, not working anymore, wealthy, etc. However, the truth to that is 1) many of those things you can do now 2) many of those things you actually do not want to do 3) many of those things will not be enjoyable when you are old and without much company to do so.

Everyone talks about living in a farm or cabin in the woods. Well, just do it.

You’ll quickly realize it’s not the solution. Yes, everyone wants to be around nature and no one wants to be paying crazy rent in a dirty city. But everyone wants to be around others and a lot of people need to live close by to services.

I say this because I did this. During the pandemic, I took a Leave of Absence during school. My options were to work on a farm in Colorado or live a remote house in the middle of the United States with 10 strangers. I did the latter and flew in where we all got covid checked beforehand. I applied for jobs and eventually got some gigs to pay for rent. We just hung out in nature and played board games. It was one of the most fun times I had, but it was also a reality check that things are best enjoyed with company.

Life is what you make of it. It’s so easy to live a templated life. I am guilty of this. But if you have conviction over yourself, you should trust in yourself. Do the things you want to be good at and want to love doing and just trust things will work out.

For me, I want to:

• make a movie animation that elicits emotion
• make a brand / shop in fashion
• build a startup / be ceo of a company
• be in the news / get recognized
• make 10M
• build a game
• design an amazing home and garden
• be self sustainable
• create a space for friends and family
• design a public campus
• help others where i can
• start a family
• be extremely fit and fashionable and healthy