Danny ChaiI feel like I am only now, at the age of 28, learning some very basic truths about life, stuff I should have known for decades. I was telling this to my mom when she came out this weekend. But like, one truth is, if you want something in life, you have to do something to make it happen, maybe even fight for it. It’s not just gonna come to you.
I honestly didn’t know that. Reason being, I dunno, for a long time when I was growing up, my mom made everything happen. I only had to do well with what was given to me. But in terms of pursuing things, I never had to do that because my mom did it for me. I placed in the talent show in 4th grade because my mom made me enter and told me exactly what to play. I went to Bell because my mom made me. Got an apparently hard to get lab job summer after high school thanks to her. She basically took care of everything.
So my thinking for a long time has been, do what you do well, and things will just fall into place, things will happen for you, things you want will come to you. It’s hopelessly naive. At least with work. Things will not happen unless you do something to make them happen, and that’s something I’m just now, in the past couple years, learning.
It’s easy to blame my mom for making me this way, but that’s lame. Literally everything in life you can ultimately blame on something else, what someone did to you or how you are, your genetics. (SN. This gets into something I’ve been wanting to write about for a while. But it’s weird to me how modern science basically denies free will. Whether you believe in nature or nurture, genetics or environment, either way, science tells you the way you are is beyond your control. In the courtroom and in their hearts, people use this to deny personal responsibility, blaming how they were raised, some childhood experience, or their DNA for who they are. Nothing is ever anyone’s “fault.” But that’s a topic for another time.)
So yeah, I can blame everything about how I am on something or other, but at some point, as My Utmost constantly says, I have to draw a line and take responsibility for who I am. My mom raised me the best she could. I am who I am, and where I go from here is entirely up to me. And it’s time for me to start doing things to make stuff happen in my life. It’s just a little sad that it took 28 years for me to realize this. Isn’t this something people should know in like 3rd grade? I dunno, better late than never I guess.