This is not an “if I can do it, you can do it too” story.

This is a reality check.
Are you living a whole-hearted life?

Do you spend more time like this?

                                Or like this?

When was the last time you sat down alone in a quiet room and asked yourself “what matters most?”

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After spending almost two years living in the jungles of Thailand, I’ve been back in Canada for a short visit at home before shipping myself down south one last time to complete my degree. Approaching the end of nearly a decade of graduate work, and the culmination of a lifetime spent in the education system, this has definitely been a significant and self reflective time for me. I started school when I was 4 years old. I will finish school one year shy of 3 decades later, with only one year “off” between undergraduate and graduate training, that I took to work and do 2 field schools in Central America and volunteer at a chimpanzee research/education facility to gain some experience with non-human primates. (Does that still count as school? It was too fun to be school :) )

I left Canada in 2003, moving to southern Illinois to pursue my lifetime goal of getting a PhD (set when I was somewhere between the ages of 6-10, so that my name would be “Dr. Prime” like my Dad) and working with animals (because I liked them better than people). Those were my only motivating factors when I started this route, and they had (and probably still have) no explanatory basis or rationale whatsoever. They are just the intrinsic inexplicable tenets of my existence; the only two things that come from my heart and not my head. When I made my first ever imaginary list of “what I want to do with my life,” all that was on it was: 1) be Dr. Prime, and 2) I like animals better than people.

You see, the thing about growing up in North America is that, basically from the time you can talk, adults start asking: “what do you want to be when you grow up?” And so we are obliged to come up answers. As you get older this question morphs into “what do you want to do with your life?” “What courses are you going to take to be what you want?” “What are you going to do with that degree?” “Where are you going to work?” “How much money will you make doing that” and so on…. The purpose of this, of course, is so that our young and promising futures can be planned out accordingly and we will become unique and successful individuals who fulfill our destinies.

“Unique” – meaning, not like ANYONE else, on this entire planet of 7+ billion people.
"Successful” – meaning have as many riches as possible.
“Individuals” – meaning separate from others.

But realistically, are people supposed to know, not only their destiny, but the planned course of action of how to fulfill it by the time they become self aware (which happens progressively between the ages of 2-5 yrs old)?

I doubt it.

Ok, maybe that's too young, but by middle school - we definitely know, right?
Or if not then, most certainly by highschool we are certain of who we are and what we want to do forever, right? ... well maybe by undergrad....or...

I’m not knocking the North American system here, many people do find jobs they absolutely love and work hard at to be triumphant (regardless of how successful their personal/emotional life is). The world seems to have a way of making things come together. So if our cultural contribution gets it at least half right with planning, we’re on the right track. And I don’t mean to imply that other cultural systems have it 100% right or wrong either. I can compare and contrast only what I live and what I learn. I was born a human being and I was born into the Canadian North America way of life, so this is what I can comment on to understand life. This is the zone where I have to tease apart who I am as a human being, from who I am as a cultural mortal. These are the two influencing aspects that shape my existence, identity, perspective, and approach to life.

Of course, I am not the first person to write on this subject, if you want a limited and minuscule (but exquisite and comprehensive) fraction of information on the subjects of trying to answer those tricky questions of “what matters most?” or “what do you want to do with your life?” you can pick basically any book on one of my posted reading lists and go from there.

But this blog is not about finding answers or telling you what to do (hence the reminder title of this post). This blog is just about me. And it’s a way for me to work through the ideas in my head, which I share because, as a primate, I am part of a much larger collective beyond my own curiously small head.

And this particular post series is about the unraveling, descrambling, and construction of the currently accurate responses to the questions “what do you want to do with your life?” and “what matters most?”

(see part two con’t - "This is not an 'if I can do it, you can do it too' story")