#serious-thoughts And I found it so beautiful that I want to stay here. It's not that much of a secret that corporate life is [[what i really want to do|what I consider to be a huge pain in the ass]]. Ever since I was young, it wasn't like I was particularly pushed to achieve more. People generally think this because I'm Asian and it's obviously a huge stereotype. But my parents are actually more of the hands-off neglectful end when it came to academics, even though my dad incorrectly hilariously attributed all my academic and career achievements to himself. That is totally an issue I have to address separately though. I was never really intrinsically motivated to achieve more either. It was just something that I felt like I happened to stumble into and between being lucky and having the skills to take advantage of the opportunities that fell onto my lap, I always felt like it was an accident that I ended up where I am now. (Writing this I realize how I feel so undeserving of where I currently am, but I'll unpack that with my therapist.) Now that I have more freedom in life though, I've been trying out so many wonderful things. I've had an exhibit for myself at an art show. I'm presenting on unhinged topics for a social group I'm apart of. I've performed onstage for small groups. I've tried a bunch of new cute hobbies where I've been meeting so much more cool people. Oh my GOD there is so much more to life than mind-numbingly sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day and wanting to straight up \[redacted\] myself. Because I'm psychotically obsessed with improving myself, I have both a life coach and a therapist. They're so fucking expensive and I admit it's hella extra. But my life coach pointed out to me that I have a fixation for creating things because I love how it makes people feel when I create something useful and wonderful to them. And he's right. I wish I can just sit and create things for people all the time. I want to make food for people. I want to make useful side projects for people. I want to make cute things that bring people joy. I'm constantly at a tug of war with myself between what I feel like is practical for my life and what I feel that I actually want. Practical: - Work a 9-5 software engineering job. Climb the ladder. Make bank. Marry someone equally as successful as me. Live a DINK lifestyle and travel the world and have a home in the Bay Area What I want: - Confess my love to whoever my current impractical crush is, move to them and devote my life and be domestic as fuck and make them all their favorite foods. Retire early in a cheap part of the United States so I never have to work again. Work as a librarian or teacher. Stream on Twitch to 0 viewers but do it because it makes me happy. The obvious answer here is to have some sort of healthy in-between, because I seriously hate both options. The practical options make me feel like I'll be a soulless corporate robot. What I want is also terrible because I'll feel like I'm throwing literally everything away -- I've achieved far too much to waste it on whims and I've socio-economically climbed so much since I was born. However, the in-between somehow seems impossible to me -- in my head, I'm not able to have both. Why do I feel like this? Surely being both happy and successful should be possible.