Next Stop: My Thoughts

When I immigrated to Canada, I first had a really hard time finding friends. Luckily though, I've been able to gradually meet some very close friends over the years. And these friends were so special, they made me want to stop and reflect what really set them apart from others.

Whenever I go to networking events, I notice something strange. Whenever someone is asked who they are, they respond with what they do. But your career isn't equal to your identity... and not realising this has some important consequences.

Often times, we think of weaknesses as parts of ourselves to change and strengths as traits to build. In some situations, this isn't entirely accurate. I think that sometimes, we just have these natural ways in which we behave. And depending on the context, that could be for the better or worse...

There are a lot of self-help gurus out there that tell you to get over your fears and everything will be fine. I never really trusted them (or found that advice helpful at all...) But recently, I've started to discover new challenges that actually helped me get over my fears, understand why this is really important, and then discover a second step to take after getting over these fears!

Paul Graham has this analogy of how keeping your options in life is great just like keeping afloat higher on a glider. That way, you have more places to land in a glider and more opportunities to pursue in life. I was thinking a bit more about this though, and I thought that the hang glider analogy could be taken a bit further. So I came up with my theory on why life is like a hang glider (and how we can use this to make better decisions)...