Ragne's Abyss

From an early age, I’ve been conditioned with the success mindset; getting a career that will lead to a large revenue. My mom has always told me that I would be going to college, there was no negotiation on that. From the prime age of four, I knew that I would be going to college and getting a career that is successful. My mom would always say, “Make sure you get a career that will allow you to live comfortably”. That statement has always been in the back of my head. My family worships money. My aunts, uncle, and cousins would always push the notion of making a lot of money; that was the most important thing. I would be absolutely useless if I didn’t make money; my life would amount to nothing. As I got older, in High School, I started to realize that there’s only a few careers I could choose from that would allow me to make good money. I had to make at least $200k a year if I wanted to live a good life, so I’ve been told. So, I browsed my options; Medical, Law, Finance, Tech. I ended up choosing medicine. My plan was to become a doctor, an anesthesiologist to be specific.

 I researched their salary and found that they can make over $500k a year, so I decided this was the perfect job for me. I would be wealthy, successful, my family would be proud, my mom even more proud, and I’d be able to live comfortably. The plan was to go to college, major in biology, go to medical school, and then get the job; simple. I stuck with this plan until the summer after my High School graduation. Two months before college started, I had a mental breakdown. I realized how much I absolutely hate science. What am I doing majoring in biology? I struggled in biology, even more in chemistry. I’d much rather do manual labor work than do sciences and I hate getting my hands dirty, so that speaks volumes. I’m not good at science, even worse at math. I can’t allow myself to pursue a major in a subject I know I will struggle or potentially fail in. So, I changed my major. 

I knew that I was intrigued by the human mind. So, I decided to major in psychology. I’m a huge mental health advocate, so having the ability to help people with their mental health sounded luxurious. This thought was paired with the fact that I could be making at least $190k-200k a year, perfect. That’s the major I entered college with, I had gotten my plan back together. I knew what I was doing with my life again. Going through a couple weeks of Psychology 150, I came to the realization that, this too, is something I’m not interested in. Sure, I’m curious about the human mind, but to the extent of making it my career? I think not. I was lost, once again. I had fallen completely off of my path, my thoroughly constructed path. Without a plan, I felt like I would only disappoint my family, even more so my mom. All of the careers that made large sums of money were in subjects I couldn’t see myself in; subjects that weren’t me. I cried for weeks, juggling the idea of becoming a nobody. Would I really amount to nothing? Who am I if I’m not making money, if I’m not successful?

My obsession with salary drove me into hysteria. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have it all together; I was failing. I changed my major four times in the span of four months. It’s gotten to the point where both my mom and my family believe that I’m going to switch my major three, four more times before graduating. I felt like they had lost hope in what I was becoming. They too knew that I had no idea what to do with myself, and that broke me. I was disappointed in myself. I didn’t know what to do and I always knew what to do. What’s going on with me? Why am I so–lost? I heard stories about how people enter college and end up confused about their life, but I never imagined it would happen to me. I didn’t think I would ever be confused on who I was, on who I was becoming, on who I should be.

After resting in my disappointment, I started to reexamine what success truly is. Success is subjective. You’re going to hear different words when asking people what they believe success is and it’s not a simple one-word answer. So, it didn’t work asking anyone. I had to really question: What is success to me? Taking away the outside noise of my family, the opinions of my mom, and the conditioned thoughts I’ve come to house; What is success? I sat on this question for a long time. It’s funny how hard it is to answer a personal question when removing the conditioned response. I had to sit in isolation like Henry David Thoreau and conceptualize what success is meant to look like in my life. After pondering, I came to an answer. 

Success isn’t about money. Yes, money is great and achieving a lot of it is also great. But, I whole-heartedly believe that money doesn’t encapsulate everything. Passion is what’s important. To be able to get up and go to work without grumbling, without secretly hating your job, with a smile and excitement; that’s what success looks like. Being able to take a step outside of yourself, observe what you’ve accomplished, and smile; that’s what success looks like. Being able to talk about your career with enthusiasm; that’s what success looks like. To pursue a career in a field that you are good at, that you know, that you love. It doesn’t matter how much money I have if I’m unhappy. Going through life and realizing that I’ve accomplished the goals of everyone else will only lead me to distress. It would be agony having to accept that I have let myself go for the smiles of others. My life is only lived by myself and no matter how hard I try to share this life, I can’t. I’m the one that has to live with my decisions, my actions, my thoughts. I have to live with myself, I will always have to live with myself. So, why am I subjecting myself to puppetry? Allowing someone else to dictate the route I travel on. 

I changed my major, again. This time, I changed it on my own terms in a subject I’ve always been good at. A subject that I always loved and find myself retreating to; English. I’m a reader and a writer at heart. I indulge in various forms of literature and I write on a daily basis. There’s nothing in this world that I would love more than to spend my days reading and writing. Growing my vocabulary is a fun activity for me. I mean, I play scrabble for fun! English is the perfect representation of me. It’s who I am, most importantly, it’s who I’ve always been. I know that there aren’t a lot of careers that make good money with a degree in English, but that no longer matters to me. For the first time, I understand how passionate artists feel about their career, about their work. My success is being able to pursue my favorite things. Identifying myself as nobody else but me. 

We shouldn’t subject ourselves to the aspirations of others. Following our desires and dreams isn’t naive, it’s critical. No goal is unrealistic, nothing is impossible and I refuse to subject myself to that caged abstraction. So, my new plan? I am to finish college, get my degree in English with a minor in Journalism, and to try my absolute best to get my work published as a columnist; working for Vogue, New York Times, LA Times, The Wall Street Journal, and so forth. Though it may seem unrealistic, it is my reality. Don’t allow others to determine what your reality is. So, I will now ask this; What is success to you? For, you are the only one who can determine that. Let us shed the thick walls of what we’ve been conditioned to believe and rebuild new structures of faith. Allow your dreams to fuel you into ambition and question the ideas that have been taught to you.