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Life is what you make it

  One of my favorite Nas rap songs is "Life is what you make it." Everything that I have been able to accomplish is because of (at least) two reasons: 1) I've had a burning desire to be a scientist since I was a child and 2) I have been lucky to have the support of my parents along with great teachers and mentors that have guided me. I want to focus on the first point in this blog. Albert Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge because you have to first imagine where you want to go, in order to be able to work towards that direction. If you can't imagine where you want to go, then you will probably end up having a job you find miserable. I recognize that I was lucky to be able to imagine myself being a scientist at a young age, where as other people spend much more of their lives trying to figure it out. 

    So how do you figure out what you want to do in life? There is no real answer to this, since everyone is different. If you really have no idea, I would suggest taking a personality test to help narrow it down. You can also ask yourself, "What could I imagine myself doing for several decades?' You can also think of a professional person who has impacted your life in some way. Again, these are hard questions to ask yourself, but the goal is trying to find something you can happily imagine yourself doing. I would also suggest you consider the japanese principle known as "Ikigai." Ikigai is a Japanese word for a philosophy that considers 1) What you love to do, 2) How good you are at something, 3) What the world needs, and 4) What you can be paid to do. If you find Ikigai, then you are already half way there, the rest of the work is working towards that path!

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