Danny ChaiEvery time I talk to my mom she makes it abundantly clear that she thinks I’m wasting my potential. Without really explaining well what “potential” is. Or offering any helpful advice as to what to do, other than “make a difference in the world.” That’s specific and practical. That and “get a PhD”. Literally in anything, the field is irrelevant.
The thing is, I feel the same way. Dunno about the potential thing but I feel like I should be doing more with my life but I have no idea what that means. I don’t know what fulfilling my potential means. I know for certain it doesn’t mean maximizing my money-making potential. That just depresses me. I dunno, I said this before, but going through that Stanford class book, I dunno, I just get this impression that lots of people are into maximizing their money-making potential and that depresses me. That’s not the type of potential I care about.
There are a few fields I feel are above that. Like medicine. But medicine is about the only thing I know for sure that I don’t want to do. Education, I dunno, not that much appeal to me. Ministry, I dunno, I just haven’t felt called. I’ve actually in my life felt called against full time ministry. So it’s odd because these “noble” things I’m fairly sure I don’t want to do or aren’t called to do.
Like I said before, the problem for me is choice. When there’s no choice, I excel I think. Was that way in high school when there was just a single path to take – get into a good college. I think now, if someone just mandated to me the field I had to be involved in, I would excel also. It’s this dangling carrot of choice that makes me second guess myself and keeps me from “maximizing my potential”, whatever that means. But does that mean I should just sort of randomly choose a field? Would that solve anything? I dunno. But yeah, sometimes I wish I had no choice in what I was doing. I think I’d accomplish and achieve more.
I dunno, I’m kind of depressed and frustrated because I feel like I’ve felt this way a long time and don’t know what to do. All I know is, like I told my mom, I want to follow Jesus. But I don’t know what that means practically. I think I’ve been holding myself back from pursuing more status, money or influence because I want to just pursue Jesus, but it’s becoming clear to me that sitting around doing nothing going nowhere isn’t following Jesus either.
And I get pissed at myself because one, I’m complaining and whatever in the midst of being given so much, which just sucks, and two, it never changes, I don’t do anything. But I just don’t know how to act when I’m not sure how to follow Jesus. It’s not like I’m doing nothing, I have a fine job, whatever. I just don’t know how to pursue “more” without knowing what more God wants from me. Is that even possible? To know? I don’t know. I just know I want to pursue more.
Sorry, weirdo entry. I dunno, my parents bring out weird parts of me. I think I once said how I didn’t cry for a period of about 16 years. That’s not totally accurate. On maybe 3 occasions, my parents still made me cry. About the randomest things. I remember I once almost cried arguing with my dad about recycling. Totally random. But yeah, I dunno, my parents just press some primal keys in me. It’s odd.