i feel like being lost in your early 20’s has to be the most common experiences out there

i don’t know about you guys, but for me it feels like i was pushed out of high school with no clue what i wanted to pursue, no passions, no direction.

just a brainless 18 year old high-school kid that cheated in his courses, fucked around a lot, had no inclination towards studies, and just wanted to get out.

then boom, just like that, it’s the last year and you have to decide your entire life path is for the next 4 years of college, and possibly the rest of your life.

for me, that choice was computer science.

now don’t get me wrong - cs is very broad, there’s probably a field in tech for every type of person, it can get very exciting. Till this day, I genuinely have a love for coding, I code on an almost daily basis and I’ve invested a lot of time and energy into it, but it just didn’t feel right to spend the rest of my life committed to it.

I felt this burning need to explore, experiment, and figure out what it is that i want to be doing for the long run.

so, for the rest of the year i’d do exactly that , i’d indulge in multiple different passions.

• code

• art

• animation

• flips / gymnastics

• digital writing

• content creation

• film making & video

• freestyling

if you’ve been following me on twitter, you probably saw me through all these phases.

i’d set these huge ambitious goals for each of these passions, with a vision in mind, with these results in mind, brand ideas, whatever else, and then just like that -

i would crash, and feel pulled to something completely different.

this repetitive cycle of starting one thing, getting bored, and hopping on to the next thing infuriated me, i would constantly have new curiosities, my brain would find another new interest.

i’d stop and i’d end up regretting not just grinding one thing out for a lot longer.

i thought something was fundamentally wrong with me.

my friends all seemed to have their entire trajectory figured out, they seemed to have that one thing they excel at and want to pursue forever.

why couldn’t i just be like them?

why can’t i be like damn Bao who knows he want’s to be a world rebound manga artist, why don’t I just have that engrained life path in my brain?

if you’re still reading this, there’s a chance you’re in the same boat as well.

but then it hit me..

WE’RE NOT ALL WIRED THE SAME.

Some people are born with a singular vision, sure—but others? We’re the explorers. The experimenters.

An amazing book called "Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned" by Joel Lehman and Kenneth O. Stanley completely shifted my perspective on this. It argues that setting rigid, objective-driven goals isn’t always the key to achieving greatness. Instead, true breakthroughs often come from exploration, experimentation, and stumbling upon connections we never expected.

He argues that true greatness arises from exploration and serendipity rather than rigid goals. They illustrate that many major innovations result from unexpected discoveries and connections between unrelated ideas, emphasizing that ambitious objectives can hinder progress. The book encourages a mindset of open-ended exploration, suggesting that the most profound achievements often emerge when we abandon specific targets and embrace the journey of discovery.

And that’s when I realized - maybe we’re all not meant to follow a straight path. Maybe our greatness comes from the journey itself, the unexpected twists and turns that shape us in ways we could never predict.

some of the greatest breakthroughs have come from the combination of multiple seemingly random curiosities that strung together:

When Steve Jobs dropped out of college, he started taking classes purely out of curiosity. One of these was a calligraphy class, which had no obvious practical application to his life at the time. Years later, when designing the first Macintosh computer, Jobs used the principles he learned to create beautiful fonts and typography, changing the way people interact with computers.

Takeaway: Jobs didn’t set out to change the digital world through a calligraphy class, but that random interest became a pivotal part of his legacy.

it’s putting those puzzle pieces together.

I can give a shit ton of more examples of this, but I’ll leave you guys to do the research on that.

and i know what this post is titled, but i would be lying if i said i wasted my time chasing passions.

if anything i’ve become more versatile, more confident in my abilities.

each of these passions has taught me something that i will forever carry in my future endeavours.

code has given me that problem solving part of my mind that i needed to unlock.

art has built up my creative eye and helped me tremendously with design.

animation has taught me patience, and how repetition goes a long way in making an amazing piece.

and with what i’m trying out now, content is teaching me how to be comfortable in my own frame, it’s helping me improve my speaking and refine my personality.

god knows where it’s going to go, i’m not focused on the result, i’m just focused on incrementally getting better, and following those inklings of interests and curiosities i get along my path, because i know, ultimately, it is all building to something.

if you’re feeling lost or out of sync just know: you’re not broken. You’re discovering.

that’s about it, hope y’all learned something, just wanted to get this out of my mind and on letter.

if you wan’t to check out a video format (that happens to be more entertaining):

otherwise..

stay blessed :)