I Thought I Needed To Know My Future
I was answering a completely different question.
Teachers asked me what I wanted to become.
But I wasn’t trying to become someone.
I was trying to solve a problem.
I think that’s why I couldn’t answer.
My school counselor asks me personally what I wanted to do when I finished school.
I’m thinking honestly to myself for a few seconds.
Then I haphazardly just say.
A computer engineer.
And she was impressed.
She told me I would do well.
You’re a smart boy.
But in reality, I didn’t really know what I wanted.
But when I look at my life as a computer engineer.
Something just doesn’t click.
Everybody seems to have an answer.
But I’m thinking of the goal that would change the life of the person I loved the most.
My mother comes home from yet another intense shift.
I drop everything in my video game and run down to her.
Her back hurts.
Her knees are swollen.
And feet are bruised from standing and walking all day.
I take of her jacket, kiss her and tell her.
When I’m 18, you will never have to work again! I promise!
My mother smiles with an exhausted face.
I think she knew I could do it.
But by 18 years old? How in the world.
I didn’t even think I could do it, but I promised her.
And this was my only goal.
When I talk to my teachers.
I’m not thinking about my own career.
I’m answering a different question to what they’re asking.
And becoming a computer engineer will take too long.
I’m playing video games after I finish school.
I decide to take one year of before high school.
I need to make this work.
I’m studying the best YouTubers and trying to figure out how they succeeded.
This guy called PewDiePie. Makes gaming videos and is a millionaire.
If only I can get a fraction of that, I will still be able to retire my mother.
But then I look at my channel.
277 Subscribers.
Barely any videos made.
I’m 16 years old. How will I ever make it?
What if I have to go back to school next year?
What if my mother still has to work?
What if I promised something impossible?
I check my analytics one day after months of doing YouTube.
Suddenly I see a spike so sharp it made my heart rate spike the same.
I’m actually going viral.
This is it.
I’ve actually done it.
After going back to high school after one year of trying YouTube.
I decide to drop out.
I had made over $5000 the month before.
And with the extra time now from school.
I’ll be able to work even harder and earn more.
For the first time...
It didn’t feel like I was uploading videos anymore.
It felt like I was getting closer to keeping a promise.
The day I tell my mother she doesn’t have to work again.
She responds with.
Are you serious?!
I’m so proud of you.
Thank you.
Really.
The smile on her face was the best thing ever.
My mother’s freedom is really the only thing that I’m thinking about.
And then I’m thinking.
Wow, I told myself I would do it before 18.
I guess anything is possible.
Looking back...
I didn’t choose YouTube because it was my dream.
I chose it because it was the fastest way I could imagine solving the problem that mattered most to me.
Only after I solved that problem...
did I finally have the freedom to ask:
Who do I actually want to become?
That’s when I realized something.
Purpose isn’t something you decide in a classroom.
It’s something you slowly discover while solving the problems life puts in front of you.
So ask yourself...
What question have you really been answering all these years?