Days 33&34 - parents / finding what you love

Bit of a breakthrough on the weekend regards core message of How To Survive Your Twenties.

Mission statement / directive / strapline: Find what YOU love doing and pursue it at all costs.

Why is it that your parents provide the biggest opportunities and yet the biggest obstacles in life?

It means our whole lives are spent in this endless cycle of gratitude and guilt, trying to fulfil their expectations and then apologising for simply being ourselves.

My dilemma at the moment is that I genuinely want to spend time with my parents - I am lucky enough to enjoy it - but it's difficult because they are so worried about what I am doing with my life, which ends up seeping into every conversation we have, usually resulting in an argument. Such as the one which manifested while helping my mother lift a few boxes here and there this weekend. Ironically, it all stems from the fact that 99% of parents love their kids and just want to see them do well.

And that is 'do well' as in 'do OK', not do well as in change the world (even just a little bit). In fact they want the opposite.

But the most rewarding pathways are those where you can't see the destination.

Parents simply can't fully endorse a career path they know nothing about. Especially if they suspect you know nothing about it either, as was so palpably the case when yours truly embarked on present hair brained scheme (my knowledge and power increases daily, however).
Robin Sharma, a favourite writer of mine, says everyone should try and change the world once. Great idea. How about once a week?! Maybe once a month or year is more realistic. Imagine the difference.

Another of his pearls is 'it's risky out on a limb, but that's where all the fruit is'.

Beautiful.

One of the big things I have got recently is what an acute precedent your parents set over your future... without even realising it.

It's usually a positive precedent, but a limiting one.

And I'm wagering that it's a big problem for the development of 20somethings everywhere.

Although my parents think they might have good suggestions for a potential career path, they are invariably not synchronistic with what I want from life.

The conventions of yesteryear will be different for our generation. Although I agree property ownership should be a natural 'goal' (hate that word) for a 20something, I believe finding what you love doing and pursuing it at all costs should come way ahead.

Because that way you avoid the trappings of a life you don't love.

And where does a 20something hear that from? No one. It's just convention after convention after convention. Which supposedly results in happiness - but it's an illusion. It's actually making do with unhappiness.

It is a journey the 20something must take themselves, starting within. And so many of them never actually take that journey, because they been ticking, or have ticked, their parents boxes. And they never actually find what their own boxes are, let alone tick them...

Take a moment to consider how absurd that is.

It makes life tough when you are following your own path - because all you friends / relatives are probably ticking their parents boxes and that is all your parents see.

Of course, finding what you love doing and pursuing it is one of life's scariest tasks. But man, does it feel good. Totally alive.

But imagine how frightening it is for us, the 20something, to take that route... And then amplify that fear times 10 to get to where a parent feels about it. When they can't see all the work and development and progress on a daily basis.

Because I am living life outside the comfort zone, I automatically drag my close ones outside the zone as well. But I can't let that stop me.

Because if we think our parents would be proud of us when we've ticked all their boxes, imagine how proud they will be when we tick our boxes too.

Because only then will they be looking at a complete person.

From outside the zone, salvation is within reach. If I can just remain sober long enough to grab it...

How To Survive your 20's will be infused with this mission: for 20something's to find what they love. To live happily in fear, right outside the comfort zone.

That is how my humorous, slightly cynical take on self help can genuinely be of use to 20somethings everywhere.

Real happiness lies just the other side of that one simple task.

And wealth beyond reason will follow.

Writing time: 2hours

Manifestation: 90%