April 5, 2024

Today, I’m writing this newsletter to myself because I’m the main person who needs to hear what I’m about to say.

Throughout my entire conscious life, I have pondered what I should do for “the rest of my life”—call it my career. For the past four or five years, I’ve stressed almost every night about what job or career path I should pursue. I could never decide because, honestly, I felt and still feel like I don’t want to be boxed in for my entire life. The idea of the same job, routine, location, people, ideas, and everything else seemed stifling.

People on the internet often say:

“Do what you love.”

“Find your passion.”

“If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.”

All of this sounds great, but what does the practicality of these statements look like? When I ask most people what they like to do, they usually mention things like sleeping, watching movies, hanging out with friends, playing video games, or enjoying sports. (Maybe I need to talk to different people.)

People have found what they like, but how can you survive doing what you love? And if you did survive on what you love, your passion would become your job, and then you might depend on your passion to survive, possibly not enjoying it as much. I feel like when people say “find your passion,” they mean finding something doable, something they can live with and be okay doing for the rest of their life.

I feel like most people just settle.

Is it truly possible to live a life doing something you truly enjoy without the pressures of survival? Can you keep your passion from becoming a life-sucking job?

This has been my true point of stress every night.

Here’s what you need to hear, Cameron:

Life isn’t about finding one purpose that will bring you eternal happiness—a single job, career, etc.

If you’re stressing now, do you think you’ll be happy in the future once you’ve achieved everything you’ve stressed about?

“The grass is always greener on the other side.”

Constantly worrying about the future hinders the present. Looking back on the past four years of your life, all you see is stress. Yes, there were some good times, but that stress cast a shadow over those years, creating an overall feeling of unhappiness.

The inspiration for this newsletter came after listening to a song I created four years ago; it wasn’t great, but the lyrics resonated with my feelings today.

The stress of the future.

It made me realize that for the past four years, I’ve been living in a self-created reality, a false reality filled with stress about the future.

Today, I want to share this with anyone who feels as I do.

Life is so beautifully complex and detailed. It is a privilege to be able to be alive in this very moment, to be able to write, read, learn, create, imagine, ponder, to communicate ideas through complex communication. There have been millions of people who have come before you, all dead. Millions of plants and millions of cells have come and gone before you. All gone. Millions of old people wish to be in the exact spot you are in right now.

The universe was at one point infinitely dense just before the big bang, all the matter in the universe dispersed irregularly in one instance to create everything, billions of years have brought you to existence, a conscious part of the universe itself, you, to this very moment.

And yet, we want to spend our time worrying about what could be?

Live in the moment and cherish it like it won't happen again because it won't. Don’t waste it as I have these past years. Enjoy every single thing that life offers, whether good or bad—it’s all part of the gift we were given.

Life.

Good can’t exist without bad; be grateful for it all.

This newsletter is different from my others. I sat down at my laptop and started writing, no real structure to this one. I apologize for rambling, but I believe this message to be important.

“Life is what you make it.”

Make it great.

Cam