Life Update

Hey everyone,

Today I kinda just feel like spewing what’s been on my mind recently.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about “finding your path.” Like, a lot. It basically never leaves my mind. It’s probably because I’m a junior in college about to enter summer with no real plan, graduating early in the fall, about to turn 21, working two jobs but not really sure where they’re leading me — not to mention being a chronic overplanner — but you get the point. I’m basically at a crossroads in a lot of areas in my life. And that generic phrase “find your passion” and the question “who are you?” are constantly ringing in my head. But they’re so vague and confusing. Like, I don’t know much, but I’m pretty sure I’m not just gonna wake up one day and get handed a certificate that says, “Congratulations, you found yourself!”

What I’ve realized after thinking about this for the last couple of months is that it’s never going to be one big moment like that. It’s a journey with no clear outcome, and along the way, you stumble upon things you like, things you don’t like, and eventually, things start to click.

Again, I’m no philosopher guru, and I’m not gonna sit here and pretend I have all the answers — I’m just yapping here. But I heard something on a podcast with Jacob Collier the other day that really stuck with me. He said, “The wisest don’t really know what’s going on, but they know who they are and what matters to them.” He talked a lot about the wildness of life and how once you know these internal things that ground you, you can just surrender to life and “follow the north star” — and your path reveals itself to you.

That got me thinking a lot about surrendering. Which, by the way, is a struggle. I’m a chronic planner and try to think through every possible outcome of a situation so I’m prepared. And when I think about the future, I try to predict and plan for what I need to do to get what I want. But the problem is… I don’t really know exactly what I want.

What I’ve realized is that surrendering is about knowing that I don’t have to figure everything out right now. Maybe the secret isn’t about choosing the right path. Maybe it’s about realizing that no one actually has it all figured out — and it’s okay to go at your own pace, to make mistakes, to change your mind, and to figure it out as you go.

So lately, I’ve been trying to figure out what I actually like — blocking out all the external noise. And that’s been hard. Trying to zone out the thoughts of “what would people think?” is difficult. But I think I’ve figured out a cheat code on how to start: it goes back to childhood.

When you were younger, you didn’t really understand the emotions of other people — you understood your own. For me, I think I started caring what people thought around 8th grade, which I feel like is pretty standard. So I’ve been taking myself back to before that time, thinking about the things I really enjoyed doing. That left me with reading (specifically Greek mythology — Percy Jackson, etc.), basketball, geography, and school.

Yeah, I know — school sounds like a ridiculous thing for a 6th or 7th grader to enjoy, but I did. I specifically enjoyed doing well in school because I liked learning. I tried every subject, every club — and I was good at them because of my memory skills. Yes, I memorized all the state capitals, 100+ digits of pi, and global city longitudes and latitudes. Call me weird — it’s fine, it was. But then in high school, it shifted. I started liking being good at school because I wanted people to see me as smart.

Okay, that was kinda a tangent — but here’s how it connects to today. I took those things I liked back then and started revisiting them now. Reading old books like Percy Jackson and Magic Treehouse, brushing up on my geography skills, and tapping back into the curious nature of learning — not the kind where I was trying to impress people. And what I realized is that things started to fall into place. I found inspiration in new places that felt natural and more me — not the “me” I was trying to be for other people. It became easier to spot the things I didn’t actually enjoy but was only doing because everyone else was or because I wanted to be seen in a certain way.

And that kinda brings us to the last couple of weeks, where I realized that I really like learning, exploring, and figuring stuff out. So why not combine that with my love for making videos and soul-searching? I want to explore the things I think are important, find similarities in other people, and maybe even help people realize these things within themselves.

At first, I was trying to plan everything — the exact type of content I wanted to make, the perfect schedule, the strategy for the next few months — but what I came down to the other day is that I won’t know if anything works until I try. So that’s what I’m going to do: try, fail, learn, try again, probably mess up a few more times, learn some more — and eventually, something will click. I know there’s a path somewhere in this for me — I just have to surrender to it.

Peace,

Alex