Autopilot

It's a Journey - Thought Snack #76

Hi friends :)

Welcome to the end of the year! Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season and is enjoying time with family and friends.

We’ll try to keep this one short. I’m cutting into the last hours of contact before I set off on my final adventure of the year and have been trying really hard to get this guy in shape to be posted.

I’ve been doing some end of the year reflection. I’m pleasantly surprised by all that has happened this year. There’s been so much adventure, lots of time with loved ones, and some pretty memorable milestones.

The year has turned out looking incredibly different from what I thought it would look like at the end of 2022. Life has changed in a very meaningful way. It’s almost incomprehensible how all the twists and turns of the year came together. It has been a compilation of unpredictable, unguided, unforeseen events.

I’ve been thinking about how in the past 12 months, so much has happened, but I haven’t really done anything. It feels like in 2023, life was on autopilot. It just kinda happened. Circumstances of X, led to Y. Y led to Z, and all of a sudden, 12 months flew by where a lot occurred, but I hadn’t really decided to do anything. There was never really a “plan.” Opportunities presented themselves and I took them. Why not? What else would I be doing?

I thought this was leading me down a path of realizations around my decision making processes and needing to be more intentional about “having a plan” to guide me, but the longer I sit with the idea, the less I’m sure that’s what I want. That it would even be good for me.

I realized that this is not really a new behavior for 2023. Apparently, I’ve been operating in this manner for a long long time.

• When I started college, I never made an active decision of which major I would study. I was accepted into business and engineering and then just did the things I had to do. I ended up with both degrees, without ever undergoing any real “decision making process” about it.

• I was encouraged to pursue investment banking, so I did. When I didn’t like it, I kinda fell into the role I’m in now.

• I moved to New York because … yeah … that’s where I always thought I would go. That’s where my friends are going.

• I booked travel based on .. oh hey .. family is here, and friends are close by there, and might as well swing a visit to that other place, cuz I’m in the area. That’s how I ended up on two 6-week trips to the west coast in 2022. That’s how I ended up on a 4-month trip in Latin America last year. That’s how I ended up skiing in the Alps.

• To top it all off, a 50% off email in my inbox is how I find myself sitting in a hotel room in Ushuaia, at the southern tip of Argentina, about to embark on a 2-week expedition to Antarctica.

Going with the flow and making the most of what’s been in front of me has afforded some really amazing experiences that I never would have dreamt up myself. I’m really lucky to have had the opportunity to wander. I feel like it’s probably part of who I am to thrive on a little bit on unpredictably.

I did start to realize, though, that there has been a major change in the underlying motivations behind my actions over the last few years. Mainly in purpose. Before graduating from college, there were always clear things that I was working towards. In high school, so much of what I did was under the pretext of getting into a good school for university. When in college, I was very focused on getting internships and jobs. I more or less knew what I had to do, and got the job done.

More recently, I haven’t really had much that I’ve been aiming at. I have a stable job that can keep me busy and learning. I have the flexibility and freedom that provides a plethora of options for what to do tomorrow, next week, and next month. I don’t have an answer to what’s next in life? Travelling? Getting married? Moving up the “corporate ladder”? Spending time with my family? There is little to no clarity on the things I need to do. Everything is so much more optional.

I can see the impact my list of highlights over the past few years. I’ve done a lot of really cool things. Without much to show.

Purpose

I’ve always told the people around me that I want to work on things that are going to change the world. I want to know that when all is said and done, I made a difference. That things I worked on helped other people.

Since turning adult, I’ve thought a lot about those ideas, but haven’t really acted on them. I used all of my new freedom to run around and play and explore. And let me tell you … I’ve done that good.

But I think, now, it’s time to refocus. Time to act with a little bit of intention.

Leaving 2024, I want to be able to look back and say that with my time, I accomplished x,y,z. I want to know that I developed some new skills. Learned some new ideas. Created value not only to my life, but also to the lives of others.

I’ve spent 25 years working on myself and developing skills to be a contributive member of society. In this next phase of life, I want to start using those skills to create change that is bigger than myself. I want to internalize that I now have what it takes to do so.

I want to know that I worked towards something bigger than just a random walk through life. That life didn’t just happen to me. That I made life happen.

Sincerely thank you for all of your love and attention this year. Our journeys only continue to move forward as we grow and change and learn and fail. Wishing you a happy, healthy, prosperous year ahead.

As always…

Don’t forget to smile today :)

Thejas

P.S. If you’d like to check-in and see where I’ll be over the next few weeks in Antarctica, use this ship tracker.

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