My Future

I often have a hard time thinking about what I want to do when I grow up. Maybe because it's embarrassing to admit what I truly want because of how extravagant and unreasonable it may sound. A lot of the time when I'm in my own head and imagine my vision of the future, I find myself having a hard time believing that that is really what I want. So instead of focusing on those, I instead develop ideas of what I don't want to do in the future.

The thought of working a 9-5 sounds terrifying, withering away in industry at the hands of capitalism until I am too old and no longer useful. By that time, I'll instead be physically withering away at the hands of death. I feel like this is a very negative perception and somebody probably needs to humble me but it’s truly what I think. Despite the financial stability, working 9-5 just doesn't seem like the life I want. Money is important, but doing something that I genuinely care about and working a job that doesn’t make me hate my life matters more.

I like to have flexibility with my time, I hate not having autonomy; I hate doing things when they’re not done on my own terms. As such, freelance sounds like an attractive option but also not really because for the most part it isn’t really “skilled.” Like, my math degree won’t help me be a “better freelancer,” whatever that means, in the way that it would help me be more successful in other fields. Additionally, roles like tutoring don't sit well with me. I'd feel guilty about charging parents to artificially inflate their children's grades, or even worse fail to help those students. The one thing with freelancing is that it’s probably easier to commit tax evasion compared to a traditional job. Not that I’m planning on doing so.

I really like writing, but I want to write what I want and generally that doesn’t line up with what people are looking for, and writing as a career doesn’t sound very lucrative anyways. Unless I’d be an author or something, but that sounds more like a side project, and I don’t think I’d have the energy to dedicate all my time to writing a book anyways, although that could be cool.

I want to be free-spirited. I want to do the things that I want, the things that are meaningful to me. What that is, I'm not completely sure but I do know that I love being recognized for being skilled at my craft, as well as having an impact on as many people as possible. Math just has never given me chills the way self-expression through fine arts have. I’ve had the privilege to witness the inner workings of some brilliant minds like David Altizio and Titu Andreescu live, but although inspiring, they just haven’t made me excited or emotional the way Kelly Wakasa or Daniel Kwan have.

But obviously this idea is very farfetched. I’m a math major, and like I mentioned earlier it would feel very strange to pursue a career that my degree won’t help me with. Besides, I have no basis in film and I’ve built everything I am off of mathematics and my ability to calculate and optimize everything. It’s a skill that’s benefitted me through and through, from Chess to Math Olympiad to hitting Challenger in TFT to quite literally every aspect of my life. This skillset will probably draw me to tech or finance as I could never see myself pursuing a career in physical science.

Even then, I don’t want to give up the part of me that screams arts. The part of me that loves to touch the hearts of other people. The part of me that wants to move audiences to tears. While fine arts seem so alluring, the empty characters in my C++ IDE are so lifeless. I always tell people that I’ll leave my pursuits in art as a hobby. But my true hope is to be able to retire early enough that I’ll still have time to create my vision.

My mom often tells me that I think too much.

She says that in every single one of her successes, she just “did it.” That was what brought her results. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t adopt this same mentality. I want everything I do to be done through love and passion, and that is what I feel will help me be most successful. I want my work to feel meaningful. I don’t want to do something that feels repetitive, I want to be able to use my problem-solving and critical thinking skills to their full potential. I want to feel like my contributions are useful and that my brain is being challenged day in and day out. What I love is to be creative. To have every day feel different, like my critical thinking and analysis has a direct effect on the success of my craft. Without this, I fear I may become numb and eventually mentally check out of my job completely, like I have done with school in the past.

Honestly, I say this but I’m not too sure if they are true. When the time comes, I’ll probably become capitalism’s slut anyways, because money will likely dictate my entire life and you can’t live, laugh, love your way to your first million. I know the reality, more or less. Cost of living is only increasing, and if I want to settle down in one of the more expensive cities in the future, which I probably do, at least for a little while, I’ll have to be on the higher end of the spectrum.

At the end of the day, I’d probably take any job offered to me. I’d salivate at the thought of six figures. For $200,000, I’d sell my soul. I’d become just like anyone else. Another pawn in society’s game.