Life-Changing Realization

I can't shy away from hard things. I have to continue to challenge myself to do hard things, like be forced to make decisions about people so that I can help even more people down the line. It's so important to me to help any person I come across be their best self (though it's not true for anyone. I feel the calling more for some people than others. There are people we're destined to help, I believe).

Life's easier when you're enduring the suffering for something that you care about. (I suppose musical self-expression isn't. No, it isn't, I don't do things for myself. I don't have the drive to.)

J--, I've made a realization.

What's that?

I realized that the biggest motivator in my life is helping other people. After PROMYS, I've realized how much shit I can wade through for the program and the kids at the program. I've always struggled with self-studying math and even music because I can't connect it to serving other people and when I do connect it to helping others directly (ie. education), then I feel motivated. I have to gaslight myself into practicing a lecture to an imaginary audience so I review material. And like, the biggest motivator for me getting my life together is "I want to be happier so I can be nicer and better to other people."

That definitely sounds like a good thing to know. That's a big thing to realize if you're sure about it.

Yeah, I'm going to monitor it for a while before I'll say I'm sure, but I think there's a high likelihood this is true.

I know I'm saying it now when I'm high off the dopamine, but I think it's true. My Common App was about empathy and how that sparked my passions. Yes, I'm not the most motivated even then, but that's what's brought me through hard times. PROMYS was hard but I woke up and did things for those around me. My decisions for taking care of myself was so I could be genuinely nicer, more patient, more empathetic to the people around me, not for myself.

That's why in middle school I cried about being a bad person. That's why I journal, to be a better person to those around me. A lot of my writing [in my journal] nowadays is centered on that. When I phrase something in the sense of being for other people, I do it. I don't think of any excuses. I care too much about what others think.

The people that I truly appreciate are those that are uniformly kind to others, but not only that, people who are perceptive, who make sure that no one slips through the cracks. Gentle, all-including.

I want to be an educator for this reason, so I can personally touch the lives of my students, to inspire them. I still love math, and I want other people to experience that pleasure too. I write to tell other people of my experiences as warning, as hope. It's a bit more nuanced than just me wanting to help anyone and everyone. For instance I more or less (for better or for worse) don't care much about global issues. I care way more about very local things. People who are close to me. People who I can identify myself in. It's odd. It's nuanced. But that's the basic idea.

The above was writing taken directly from my journal and from a conversation I had with my friend after I made this revelation. Apologies for the lack of context and poor writing, it was not originally written with intention to be revealed to a wider audience. This is probably the most life-changing realization that I've ever made, and I feel the need to tell the world. To combat writing paralysis, I've decided to take words straight from my journal and put it here to share with you in the most authentic way possible. I've figured out my life purpose. Almost.

Along with this, a bit of an update. I currently have a couple big projects in the works: the long-awaited PROMYS 24 review (it's currently 3000 words and counting), 26 Hours in Phoenix (1600 words and counting; man my writing nowadays has just gotten longer and longer), and a reflection on my submissions to the MIT Admissions Blogger Apps for this year. I've also recently started a post titled "The 18.03 ASE Experience" that I really should not be starting and instead be working on the aforementioned posts, but inspiration hit me so I wrote. OMG and even more on the backlog is a response to the letter that I wrote for my future self before freshman year started. Lots of writing I need to get done!