How do people decide what they want to be in the future. Is it fate, is it luck, is it a pre-ordained notion? I have heard that it comes from within but what really is the 'within'. Was I born with a programed 'within' that I only get to realize once I am of age? or is my 'within' like the phylum Porifera of the animal kingdom a.k.a sponge, constantly absorbing an unfiltered sub-conscious? The idea that an individual was born to do what he does for a living is absolutely flawed.
The shape of your future follows the same principles found in the theory of relativity. If space and time can dilate, your success and future can never be uniform and absolute. Why did I go to school for Chemical Engineering? I had this one uncle, had a nice house, tons of cars and a generous heart. What did he do for a living? - worked as a manager for TOTAL ($20 to any American who knows what this company does) and they deal with oil and gas exploration, LNG trading and transportation, oil refining and chemical productions. Geez, my first thought at age 8 was 'What a sweet gig'. He had lived in France and the UK and what 8-year old boy would not be motivated by that alone. I later found out I had another uncle who went to school for chemical engineering but works as a consultant for a multinational accounting firm and was comfortable cash-wise. Really smart individual and poised in every way possible. Fast forward a year, I learnt about Nigeria's vast amount of crude oil and how we were top 5 exporters of crude oil to the U.S. At that moment, I was sure there was space for one more chemical or petrochemical engineer seeing how well everyone in that field was doing. You could say that at age 9, my drive to become an engineer was strictly driven by money and still probably is the case 14 years down the line.
No one wakes up and says, I want to be a doctor, an architect, a plumber, a mechanic, an entrepreneur, a musician without having being told or indirectly influenced. Someone or something gradually affects or even infects your state of mind to make you realize what you are capable of achieving. Some external forces exerts very powerful yet subtle pressure on your internal desires (or what we think is our inner desire) and opens up our minds to the possibilities of how we can shape our future, how we can define our destiny. For me, I had this awesome chemistry teacher who made it possible for me to enjoy learning atoms, molecules, covalent bonds and ionic bonds and that was one external force that got me one step closer to realizing what I set out to become. By the time I got to university, there was no going back. I became the englishman who swam half way on the Thames, got tired but decided to keep going because going back would take the same effort as finishing given he had already covered 50% of his journey only that I am Nigerian-born and a 50 yards is the furthest I can swim in one stretch.
Theoretically, if I had rich pilots for uncles and affluent lawyers for aunts, watched all episodes of Doogie Howser or had someone I really admired talk to me about the good work accountants do, I would either be about to get my 'wings' from pilot school or just entering my 3 year of Law school or getting ready to graduate from Medical school or be an up-and-coming go-to numbers guy for PwC but none of that existed in my developing years so here I am with a BSc. in Chemical Engineering and a minor in Entrepreneurship working a good-paying analyst job for an investment bank. Knowing that one of my favorite enemies, time, works the clock just to spite me, I have to pick something and stick with it. Being a creature that understands that there is an end to my existence, I just had to pick a type of life, run with it and make it work by all means possible. The only period time does anything good for me is when I borrow money and I need it to work its freaking magic and stretch out that repay period as long as it can. The moment time and I get to know each other and we understand ourselves better, I shall be all I want to be.
I have learnt not to break a sweat on what I am doing now as long as it gets me one step closer to my cash-intensely, money-driven desire to be successful because the end for me justifies the means. So although the dream can never die, it definitely is going to be abused, stepped-on, slapped, punched, kicked, jabbed, stabbed, shot-at and mocked until it diffuses via osmosis into a world of reality.
..::GIDI::..
