#tedxbend

This is the first time I am speaking out loud about my anxiety. Thinking about the future, especially after graduation is giving me so much anxiety even in the dawning days just before the ceremony. It sounds common for all. But I don’t think what I am experiencing is the normal jittery bug thing that comes off after and easily.

I feel anxious about my future simply because I don’t know my future, or at least I don’t know one single thing that I will feel passionately about for the rest of my life. Time after time, I keep realizing things that I feel passionate but none of which I stuck to for a very long time. This made me anxious because it made me feel like something was wrong with me. Maybe I am not bound to be the success story that my family expects me to be. I have even thought about

Day after graduation, here I was, contemplating the unusual feeling stirring  in me; occasionally crying out all the frustrations that comes with that feeling; and trying to come up with a magnificent cover letter for an internship that I may or may not want (percentage wise it’s 30-70 respectively). Amidst all of that, I stumble upon the greatest and possibly the most reassuring TED talk I’ve ever seen—Why Some of Us Don’t Have One True Calling? by Emilie Wapnick.

After watching, it hit me. I am not the only one in the world experiencing this. In fact, I am only one of many. I am one of many people who are so afraid of being ask the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” As a kid, I remember giving out too many different answers each time I am asked. And then when I grew older, it just made me scared because some of my peers already knew who they were going to be while I am still trying to figure it out. Then I just started to answer it philosophically. “Happy,” I say. It is the truth but it also is a way out to not give a concrete answer that people who have asked me wanted to hear. And here I am a college graduate, degree on a hand, and I still don’t know. I have too many whos and whats to choose from. The hardest part is trying to choose when in fact you just physically and emotionally cannot because as soon as you picked one there comes a point when you just get bored and want to move on to other things.

Wapnick was definitely right when she said it all comes down to the culture we’ve grown accustomed to. Why does society keep on boxing us in and not let us freely flow in this vast universe? Why are we taught to be only one thing when in fact we can be lots of things? Boxing who I am in the confines of what is acceptable with the society has given me so much anxiety.

Multipotentialite is a thing that everybody needs to know. It is not a thing made up as an excuse for people’s fickle-mindedness. No, as a matter of fact, it is the answer. We need multipotentialites as much as we need specialist in this world. Idea synthesis, rapid learning, and adaptability are just some of the greatest strengths of a multipotentialite as said by Wapnick.

It is time to stop trying to box people in rather it is time to free people out, out of what is acceptable and not acceptable as deemed by the society. It is okay to be different. It is okay to want all sorts of things. Embrace it. That’s what make you, you.