Staying True To YourselfPeople Hate This
People Hate This
Life makes it hard to stay true to yourself. As a young student, constantly being exposed to a variety of external factors, it is really easy to get influenced and swayed away from your core.
I go through this thought exercise all the time — especially in two aspects of my life: my personality and my goals.
Personality
I am really self-aware. I know exactly what my personality is and, through years of operant conditioning, understand exactly how people will react to me. But year over year, regardless of how much I want to change and conform, I don’t. My personality remains the same.
And what I’ve come to realize is that this is a part of my life that cannot be changed. It is permanent with me — for better or worse. And trying to adapt it is not going to work.
Now that sounds a bit ignorant and jerk-ish. Of course I need to change my ways and constantly strive to help other people and improve my relational skills. But what I meant to get at is that the core, my identity — does not seem to be changing any time soon. And, at least knowing that, will help me better understand myself and how I should make decisions.
Goals
External pressures constantly influence my day-to-day goals. Though this is the case, I work hard to keep my over-arching, long-term goals independent of day-to-day events. I do this because I know that side-tracks and externalities will sway my vision for the future. And I do not want other opinions dictating what I want for the future. Not that I am opposed to feedback from mentors, but I know that I am not comfortable with, randomly, changing what I want.
And this has been really hard to do. Because the life I currently try to live is action-packed and fast-paced, it is really really easy for me to change my future vision. I could think one day I want to be a consultant — the next founder — the next VC. That makes it really hard to focus and work on a mission.
Another aspect of this challenge is the social scene. What do I want out of friends? What do friends want out of me?
These are two tough questions, perhaps able to be answered on a later post; but altogether necessary questions in understanding my goals for the future.
I am aware that the future is coming, it’s inevitable. I want to be prepared.
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YOOOOOO thanks for the read — ping me jordangonen@wustl.edu or on twitter @itsjordangonen
By jordangonen on April 30, 2016.
Exported from Medium on February 17, 2018.
