Finding Direction

The path you take in life will always have its confusing moments. Ask someone 10 years older than you if they got everything figured out. Most of the time, they will be just as lost as you.

Not everyone is able to find a dream that they could stick to. Sometimes, the dream is short-lived, and the passion is quick bursts of intensity. Eventually, the flames could die down pretty fast, and people move on to another dream. It’s a vicious cycle. And you realize that you don’t really have a dream you’re committed to. That makes you feel quite lost.

It happened to me often. I have a dream, work towards it, then I think why did I even start in the first place? Is this what I really want to do? It gets frustrating, when that flame suddenly dies out.

How do I want to define my life? That is the question I always ask myself. I want to live a life where I can impact someone. Super vague, right? I don’t even know how to do so.

What I did was trial-and-error. Since I’m in University, I’ve been using my freedom to try out new things. I’ve been trying out creative pursuits, event management, entrepreneurial endeavours… All to discover what I like, what I don’t like. It was a rather tiring process, and it constantly made me feel drained.

Did that solve my feeling of loss of direction? In a way. But it definitely wouldn’t have if it were for a few more other things that I did.

One thing that I tried out was to socialize more, which could be a nightmare sometimes, but it’s always rewarding for me. I went to social events, networking sessions, just to meet different people. Maybe I could learn something from them. And I did. Hearing about their stories and experiences formulated some ideas in my head to reach my intended life definition. At the same time, these same people are now people who have become my close friends, and partners in different side projects.

The very last thing I did for myself was to set short-term goals. In my opinion, the main reason I felt lost was because I thought too much on what I should do in the long-term. However, if you couldn’t even think about the present and what you could do in the short-term, how could you even figure out what you’d do years later?

So I made two lists: one was for my short-term goals, which contains 18 goals in total that I should finish throughout the year. This included doing some volunteering jobs, writing some short stories, and joining events and competitions with friends. The other consists of simple things I could accomplish throughout my whole life with no rush. That has 100 things listed down. I also feel like if you don’t have it all figured out right now, maybe just look closer at what are the smallest things that could make you happy. If you can be grateful for the smaller things in life can you feel more fulfilled and appreciative when you achieve the biggest goal of them all.

I haven’t even finished any of my 18 goals for the year, but it is seeing some progress. As for the other 100 things, I’m barely 20% complete. But just observing some sort of progress in these achievements make me fulfilled at this present moment, and less worried about what will happen in the future.

If I continue this pace of trying new things and accomplishing these present goals, I will slowly recognize what I truly want to do, and how do I reach my desired life definition. In fact, I’m starting to reach that end of the tunnel.