There was a young man sitting where you are right now.

There was a young man sitting where you are right now.

He was ambitious, wanted a bright future, but he was not sure how to begin.

What he didn’t realise was that he had already started. He had started from the moment he was born.

He was in a rush, a race to get to somewhere.

A fictional place that represented success. A place that in reality already existed within him.

And reaching for this ‘success’ placed pressure on him, made him worry, filled him with a deep desire to achieve more.

More and more and more.

‘This’ was never enough. If only he could achieve ‘that’ he would be happier.

He saw the 0.1% earning lots of money, travelling to exotic places, wearing suits, driving fast cars.

He read about finance and the people making fortunes.

So he went and studied finance in the hopes that he would become one of them.

And when he did, ‘then’ he would be happy. Life would be good.

He became obsessed with money

He became obsessed with self-development

He became obsessed with trying to impress other people.

And he was on the path to all of that – he had investments, he passed finance with top grades, had opportunities to work in some of the top banks, on a fast-track to a life of suits and fast cars.

But then he remembered where he came from. Where his family came from.

He spent time re-evaluating himself, his own ‘success’, his own true wants and desires, and he realised all he wanted was freedom.

Freedom to spend time doing what he enjoyed.

Freedom to not have financial worries.

Freedom to learn and grow.

Freedom to explore his interests.

Freedom to exercise each day.

Freedom to spend time helping people.

And to achieve this freedom the old version of success wasn’t ‘his’ success anymore. It was just an archetype, a hologram of an archetype that he could finally see through.

And what this taught him was that often we do not want what we think we want.

We are shaped by the people around us, the environment we are in, and the things we consume.

And he had been shaping himself in the wrong direction.

You sit here today, about to enter the ‘real world’.

But the truth is, you are already in the real world, and you have been here since the day you were born.

Your world is just about to expand - A bigger version of the ‘real world’.

You will leave college into a more chaotic environment, filled with people of different values, different beliefs, and different cultures.

You will need to adapt – But you are powerful at adapting, this is the human in you.

Keep an open mind, learn quickly, stay focused on what’s important, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Lots of questions.

‘the important thing is not to stop questioning’ – Albert Einstein.

Questioning is the most powerful tool of the curious mind, and a curious mind will lead you to your biggest discovery:

What you want to do with your life – not what you ‘think’ you want to do, but what you truly want to do.

And that might not be a clear answer – it might be an idea, a vision of a lifestyle, a foggy image that becomes clearer as you progress. And that’s enough.

Because in truth, most people don’t have a crystal-clear path.

And we change too much along the journey anyway.

Think back to who you were and what you wanted last year, then think back to who you were and what you wanted five years ago…different.

And in ten years you will be a different person again, with different perspectives on life.

Each thought, each experience, each action will change you – things that we can’t fully control. But what you can try to control are these:

The people you spend time with.

The environment that you are in.

And the information you consume.

If you get those three right, you will live a good life. A life that ‘you’ have chosen.

One that relies more on choice, and less on luck.

This is the life that will help you achieve your version of ‘success’.

As you leave your college life behind, remember the lessons you learned here, the people you met, and the useful bits of knowledge you picked up along the way.

But don’t hold onto the past or let fear hold you back.

Your future is now, tomorrow, and every day for the rest of your life.

Shape it how you want.

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