• Blog
  • Archives
  • Bio
  • Awards
  • Speaking
  • Book
  • Contact

Cool enough

Published: Friday, 22 March 2013

I find that many people my age are quite lost.  They don't know what to do with their lives, they don't know what their dream job is, they don't know what their purpose in the world is, and they don't know the meaning of life.  And that all concerns them.

So they meander from one temporary thing to another that doesn't require too much responsibility, nor too much commitment.

You're going to be alive for decades longer, and the age expectancy keeps increasing.  Or you're not.

Don't worry about what you will achieve in your life and what legacy you will leave behind.  Instead, figure out where you will be in 3 months.

At the same job?  Still studying?

Studying a language overseas?

Working on freelance gigs?

Your next project?

Wrapping up this project?

Organising a conference?

Life may be decades longer.  Life may be a century longer.  Or life may be a week longer.  You never know when you will live and when you won't.  So stop trying to figure out what your ultimate dream will be, choose a project, and start pursuing that for the next three months.  Your project doesn't have to be your ultimate legacy or represent your ultimate meaning in life.  That's too much pressure.  Just choose a project that's "cool enough" for you, your skills and where you are in life.  Putting too much emphasis and pressure on it makes it too scary for you to start.  "Cool enough" could be something you learn a new skill out of, (such as management, leadership, coding, building, speaking), it could be a course, it could be travelling, or it could just be a project that sounds exciting.  By pursuing "cool enough" projects three months at a time, you will find meaning in your life, you will create a legacy, and you will find purpose.  Not in a big moment of epiphany, but in many glorious unravelling of moments.

About Me

Marita ChengForbes named me a world's top 50 woman in tech & 30 Under 30. I founded Robogals and Aipoly and was Young Australian of the Year 2012. Currently working on robotics company Aubot. I'm the youngest Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and I give speeches around the world.

I tweet @maritacheng and I'm on Facebook.

Subscribe

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Random Articles

  • How to choose your projects

    Ask yourself: 1.  What do I want to learn? 2. What do I already know? Then: 3.  Devise a project you’re interested in that involves others - Create a...

  • Wow! I'm Young Australian of the Year!

    Wow!  What a huge honour!  I flew overseas in the wee hours of 27 January, and so the whole experience of being named Young Australian of the Year is...

  • Remo Office Visit

    Remo Giuffré, Founder and Director of TEDxSydney and Founder of General Thinking, and his lovely daughter Lola (an engineering student at the...

  • Don’t forget your notebook

    They’re cheap.  They don’t always look very pretty.  You can even get some with a yellow hue!  (And even if you don’t, but you leave them for too long,...

  • I've done what I've done

    When I became Young Australian of the Year a year ago, I wanted to give as many speeches as I physically could, I wanted to contribute to the...

  • giddy, giddy, giddy

    Why create linear goals when life isn't linear? Don't create goals that are 1 -> 2 -> 3 Create goals that make leaps ad bounds, like 6 -> 14 -> 28...

  • Tune out everyone

    Being concerned with what people think about you makes you unable to contribute your best work to the world.

  • The most successful students become university professors

    When kids are in diapers, their parents enroll them into primary school. If all goes right, the right primary school could mean the right high...

  • Channel 7 - House of Wellness TV

    Channel 7’s The House of Wellness TV got in touch to find out what I’m up to. We talked robots, Aipoly and more robots.

  • Aipoly launches!

    We launched Aipoly two days before CES 2016, where we were given a booth for free, as one of five winners of the first CEA Foundation "Technology...

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Scroll to Top