Get Serious
It’s all on you.
Everything outside is chaotic, because that’s how they planned it to be. Good jobs are scarce, everything is more expensive today than it was yesterday, people are getting laid off left and right, and the doom and gloom attitude is prevalent wherever you turn. You have to be very serious and intentional about the life you want to build, the money you want to save and invest, and the people you want to keep in your life.
DECISIONS. DECISIONS. They cripple the best of us on our worst days. Make the wrong one and pay for it for years to come. Make the right ones and set yourself up for years. I’ve been on both ends of that coin. The latter is MUCH better than the former. When you make the wrong decisions and have to live through them, it is much more painful than one could imagine, but it is a necessary lesson to be learned.
For me, the wrong decision was not finishing school earlier. I spent years working in restaurants and grinding my way up through investments and hustling, plus other training programs and opportunities to get to where I am now, back in school (LOL but with a much better career + plan). Had I taken it seriously the first time at the age of 17, I would have been set by 25 with a master’s degree working in medical or engineering. But life is about learning from your mistakes, getting serious about your decision making, and improving over time so you waste less time the next go around. Constantly making the wrong decisions time and time again only wastes your time and gets you nowhere. You want to make new decisions, so you can make new mistakes, and learn new lessons. Life is about pressing forward no matter what and the only way you do that is to GET SERIOUS about the decisions you make and how you respond to your mistakes.
After I finish my bachelor’s degree this year, I plan on continuing my education with another engineering degree. I have a solid plan and am already working in my dream field towards it. The education is to solidify my knowledge as an individual and allow me to make more contributions to my team. It also gives me more credibility because credentials mean things when it comes to decision makers, especially when it comes to ABET degrees. This is me getting serious about my career, my future plans, and where I plan on being in 50 years (which is comfortably retired and old lol). Solidifying my knowledge in my field solidifies my employability over the next 30 years as I age, and I’m only getting older. I plan on being able to use my brain long after my body starts to break down on me. I also plan on being a HVT (high value target for my non-COD players) in my field. I want to be the best at whatever I touch and I plan on it. The only way to do that is to GET SERIOUS.
The way I see it, the world is filtering out the weak, uneducated, and unnecessary (who they deem unnecessary). HVTs will thrive, everyone else will be at the mercy of society. That’s the cold hard truth. Take a good look around you, fill in the gaps. Look at the labor market and see what they need… AIM FOR THE HARDEST THINGS. If it requires more math, GOOD. Doesn’t matter how long it takes you, knowing math is like being on the last flight off the island the day before a tsunami hits. Think of the world 10 years from now as the tsunami. And think of the way people (and you) live now as that tiny island. A lot of people will be washed out. Only the highly educated and skilled will find employment and opportunities. Everyone else will be subjected to the elements (whatever they are). Don’t believe me? Just look at entry level positions that don’t require schooling, what they pay, and what you have to deal with. The more math you know, the further you land from the poverty line.
Get serious about where you want to be in 25-50 years, or where you want your family to be. It’s not about next year. The decisions you make now will have ripple effects for decades to come due to how rapidly the landscape is changing and how hard it is to recover from a bad decision. Remember, just one of those can set you back a whole decade. Or you can make one right decision and look back in 10 years and be proud of yourself. Time will pass anyway. 5 years ago I had ZERO degrees and by this time next year I’ll have my engineering degree. By 2030, I plan on having TWO engineering degrees. It’s not about how you start, it’s about how you finish. And it’s not dwelling on the mistakes, it’s about learning from them and making better decisions. I didn’t make the right decisions about my education early on but when the decision came around the second time, I didn’t play with it. You shouldn’t either. STACK ON.