“Make sure you visualize what you really want, not what someone else wants for you.”
-Jerry Gillies
Reading this quote reminds me of how people are used to following others’ ambitions for them rather than their own. We want to make someone/some people proud of us and not let them down, so we pretend to be someone we’re not just to please them.
A perfect example of a situation that models this idea is career choices. A couple years ago, while I was watching videos on my computer, I clicked on a Pep-talk that was titled something like ‘How to find your purpose in 10 minutes’. The title was indeed an attention grabber, so I clicked on it and found out that many American workers and young adults aren’t happy with the choices they made in college. They chose to study something that can get them a well-paid job, but they weren’t passionate about what they were doing. These young adults’ parents were probably happy that their children were making good money. But what about their children’s happiness? The talk went on to describe a topic of having a successful life, but I couldn’t get over all the questions I had.
Did they do this to make the parents proud? To prove to them or others that they are capable of working hard for something? Why couldn’t they just stick to what they desired, instead of what others wanted for them? If these kids would have followed their dreams and worked hard as they did for someone else’s, they probably would’ve been happy, not just content because they pleased another person.
I learned that you can’t always do something for someone else if you don’t want to, especially if it means having to deal with it for the rest of your life. I hope not to fall into the intimidating preferences of my parents and really pursue something that will grant me a successful life.
So a lesson that can be taken from this is an idea to really think about your ambitions, your aspirations, your passions; to have a successful life. Not just for others; rather, for your personal achievement. Then it’ll matter.
