Today’s youth is heavily connected to the world of internet and social media. Despite its many advantages, as we all probably have realized, the internet especially social media has been causing a great anxiety within us for we constantly compare ourselves to others.
This phenomenon is nothing new and is perfectly normal to happen on an individual living in a society; only that social media has emphasized this matter. We are exposed to a slice of other people’s lives and so we can’t help but to create some “standards” of how our life should be. We see how most people conduct their lives, then we couldn’t help but think how strange it is for us if we don’t do what most people do. It’s awkward to be different than everyone else is it? Well, the struggle to fit in is not just your problem, it’s everyone else’s problem too!
Particularly in career, the trend is to work at a fun cool startup where you can basically wear your favorite hoodies 5 days a week and play video games some time during the day. It’s also cool to dare yourself and pack your luggage off to see the world for no particular reason (well, the sole reason is most probably to “find where your passion lies”). Not being bound in a desk 9-to-5 job is basically “the new cool thing” that almost every youngster are chasing on.
But how about the rest of our generation who couldn’t or wouldn’t chase that sort of life? Maybe because they prioritize on getting well paid instead of living out their passion. Maybe because they actually prefer the so-called boring 9-to-5 desk bound jobs. Are they… left out?
The answer is no, the rest of us (who don’t live up to trendy cool jobs) are not left out. We are simply… living. For whatever reason, we have priorities and circumstances and preferences that are uniquely different from others and in this case, different from the majority. Note that we don’t need to chase the so-called ‘dream jobs’ because our dream life is normally different from others.
Plus, it’s totally fine to not make a living out of something you’re passionate about simply because you still haven’t figured out your passion. Sure, we shouldn’t give up on trying to find the meaning of life, the purpose, the driving passion. Yet if you look around, most of us are still clueless on those things. Ask your parents who have probably lived their lives stuck in a routine; they still live well and even raised you (and your brothers or sisters), don’t they?