But it's one of the first occasions that I feel like I'm doing something for me. And I feel like my mind and my heart agree. I feel free. For once, I've broken past any expectations of me or the pressure I feel from comparing myself to my peers.
I am doing this one for me. In my first few semesters at MIT, I developed a four-year plan without even giving thought to what or why I wanted something in the first place.
I have a Word Document (typing that made me feel archaic for some reason...) that contains all of the most interesting or inspiring words I have ever read online. Today I pull one out from Steve Jobs at the 2005 Stanford Commencement. It's one that I remind myself of often and quoted around the sides of one of my paintings:
"Your
time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped
by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t
let the noise of other’s’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most
important, have the courage to follow
your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to
become. Everything else is secondary.”
I know my education is important. But what makes education more valuable is what you put into it - your ambitions, dreams, and confidence. Currently, I lack the latter two, and it terrifies me. Hopefully, by making myself realize that I can do something very different from my peers for a year and survive and feel phenomenal, I can believe that life can be lived without a dictated roadmap. Well, being the paranoid individual I am, I will still at least have a loosely designed plan for everything :)
I'm young. So I shouldn't live life scared of whether I'll fail. I should do things that interest, inspire, and intrigue me. And I am.
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