Hack

I recently read a book called Hack by Melissa Plaut. As soon as I saw this book on the shelf, and saw its full title "Hack: How I stopped worrying about what to do with my life and started driving a yellow cab", I knew I had to read it. I started reading it, and it was kind of creepy how similar I was to the author. Not necessarily in lifestyle, but the whole problem she faced. I think it's a problem quite common to people in their 20s, unless you are really quite lucky. It's the issue of, what exactly should I be doing with my life, why exactly was I put here on this earth, and all that jazz. It's something I have been struggling with for what seems like an eternity now, but in reality has just been...my 20s. My favourite quotes from the book happen right in the first chapter when she is talking about what exactly it was that led her to decide to start driving a New York City Cab.

"My problem was an existential one. Each thing seemed as good as the next. It was just an arbitrary decision that, in the end, had no meaning anyway, so why bother? I wasn't driven by some intense passion like my sister, and didn't have any innate talent like Allie. I wanted so badly to believe in the idea of a true calling, something a person could spend their days feeling passionate about and engaged by, but it just didn't exist for me....I was stuck in a pit of indecision and there was no place for me to put all this energy..."

I can SO identify with that. I have had so many jobs, and they all just allowed me to get by. Pay the rent, pay the bills, but I felt no passion for what I was doing, so I flitted from one job to another, simply leaving when it got boring. That has pretty much been the last three years of my life, but at least I'm slowly starting to sort it out now. I am always glad to read that other people go through the same sort of crisis. Not that I haven't enjoyed the last three years, I had a blast really, but it started to kind of feel like I was stuck in this rut and I was never ever going to get out. Right now, I feel like I have some more options. It is kind of intimidating to think, "what exactly am I going to do for the rest of my life?". The rest of a life is a long time (hopefully), and I really can't imagine doing any one thing for the whole of it. The thought actually makes me feel like barfing.

"I was no longer going to try and figure out this "rest of my life" bullshit. Instead, it was all about what was next. It was as simple as that. I was gonna treat life as the adventure I wanted it to be. I wanted to try to get as many experiences as possible under my belt before I was dead, and I didn't want to die in some office somewhere in the Financial District".

When I read that, I was just like "yes, exactly!!!". It's too much pressure, trying to pick just one thing that you think you are good at. At least it is for me. What if I want to do hundreds of different things? Is there anything wrong with that...? I have kind of tried to adopt the same philosophy that Melissa Plaut has....figure out what is next, and don't worry about 10 years, 20 years down the line. Life is too unpredictable for that anyway. It's very tiring to always be worrying about what to do with your life. Very tiring. So why let it be?