Career Life Connections 12 Anoop Randhawa

Emilie Wapnick TedTalk & Mark Manson Article - Reflection Questions

What advice did you hear/read today that you actually think is helpful to YOU as you
think about your future? If you think none of it was helpful write that (but explain why
you feel this way)

While reading Mark Manson’s article, “7 Strange Questions That Help You Find Your
Life Purpose”, I came across a piece of advice that I found very remarkable. As stated by
Mark Manson, “Discovering what you’re passionate about in life and what matters to you is a
full-contact sport, a trial-and-error process”. For the past several months, I have been trying
to figure out my passions and interests in life, hoping that by doing so, I will be able to decide
on a potential career for myself. However, it has not been an easy process. Honestly
speaking, asking a seventeen-year-old to decide on what they want to do with their life after
they complete high school is not the best idea. There are so many career options available
in this world, and so many yet to be determined. How can one decide? Fortunately, I read
this advice today and I instantly had one of those “light bulb” moments. I realized that it’s not
unusual for teenagers my age to have an unclear idea of their career path. Finding my
passions and interests in life is not supposed to take a few weeks or months. I still have so
much to discover in this world, so many life-changing experiences yet to go through, and so
many obstacles yet to be thrown my way. Furthermore, for those who do have a clear idea of
their career path, it’s normal if that path changes in the next few years. It’s normal to jump
from one career option to another. The next five to seven years in my lifetime are going to be
very important. It may be a bumpy road with lots of turns but hopefully by the end, I will have
discovered my passion.

According to Wapnick, you are either a "specialist" or a "multipotentialite." Which are

you? Why do you think that?

Over the past few months, I have put a lot of thought into my future career path. As
mentioned earlier, it has not been an easy process thinking about what I would like to do
after high school. Part of this is because I’m interested and curious about several school
subjects such as calculus, world history, biology, physics, chemistry, photography,
entrepreneurship, and geography. I find it difficult to pick just one area of study when I’m
interested in a variety of subjects. Furthermore, I stress about whether I will end up switching
my career paths multiple times during my post-secondary years because of my ability to lose
interest in something fairly quickly. For example, I have always found it difficult to stay
invested in one particular game or research project for a long period of time because after
mastering the game or conducting a thorough research about something, I simply get bored.
With that being said, I can confidently say that I am a “multipotentialite”. I believe that we all
should pave our career paths according to our “inner wiring”. If I am a multipotentialite, I
should be allowed to combine the variety of fields that I am interested in and find careers
that bring new challenges to the table each day.
Mark Manson poses various questions intended to get you thinking about your life's
purpose. I want you to seriously think about these questions, even if you find them
utterly ridiculous, and write an actual answer to at least one (you're welcome to
answer more!) of them.

In “7 Strange Questions That Help You Find Your Life Purpose”, Mark Manson poses
the following question, “What is true about you today that would make your 8-year-old self
cry?”. My answer to that question is that I have stopped playing the guitar. When I was in
grade 2, I asked my mom for a guitar and I promised that I would practice each day.
Surprisingly, I kept my promise and every day I would practice for several hours after coming
from school. In fact, I had become so attached to my guitar that my mom enrolled me into
guitar lessons at a nearby community centre. Playing guitar allowed me to relax, and as I
became older, I realized that it also became my stress-reliever. Playing my guitar allowed
me to enter a world where there were no problems, instead there was only happiness and
peace. Now once I entered high school, I realized that I wouldn’t have as much time to
practice after school. Therefore, I ended up taking a guitar class as my elective throughout
my high school years. But, at the start of grade 12, I realized that I would not be able to take
guitar as an elective because my timetable was already full. Unfortunately, I have not played
my guitar once since the start of my grade 12 year, and even worse, there’s really no good
excuse to make up for why I have stopped playing. Of course, I could say that I have been
extremely busy this year with school, work, and extracurriculars. But, I know that my
eight-year-old self would not be happy with that answer. The eight-year-old Anoop would be
disappointed and would probably start crying because she knew that deep down I did miss
playing the guitar and that I could make time to practice but I’m just scared. I’m scared to
pick up the guitar again because I don’t know if I will remember the chords that I would
spend several hours learning, and I don’t know if I will be awful at playing the guitar now. In
simpler terms, I’m scared of disappointing myself. However, the eight-year-old Anoop
wouldn't care, she knew that if in grade 2 I could pick up a guitar from the instrument shop
and start playing then I could do the exact same today.