• 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

  • #TechMyWay with Ashton Kutcher

    Spoke at a Lenovo event by myself for 12 minutes and then on a panel with Ashton Kutcher.  Met with Hollywood’s Steve Jobs and had a yarn about...

  • Manufacturing Leadership Summit, Grand Rapids Michigan

    After a long pandemic hiatus from giving speeches in person, I was invited to be the in-person keynote speaker at The Right Place’s Manufacturing...

  • Plane screens

    Walking down the aisle on an international flight, everyone is watching something different.  Whether it's the most popular television drama,...

  • A Tech Schools Update

    A building collapse warning system, a pancreatic cancer detection kit and a self-inflating shirt to stop young children drowning if they fall into a...

  • A clean slate

    After I finished high school, I felt so much relief.  I'd finally finished high school.  I'd completed the KUMON Mathematic programme, done the...

  • Think about you, think about me

    People don't think about you.  They're too busy worrying about how you think about them.

  • Burnout

    I think that burnout happens when you set a goal, you work really, really hard to achieve the goal, and then the deadline comes and you haven’t...

  • The worst that can happen

    When I was growing up, my mum earned about $20,000 a year to support herself, my brother and I.  By living very frugally and only spending money on...

  • Everything is perfect

    Whatever anyone does, whatever anyone says, is aligned with how they see the world. And so decisions people make are always perfect for them in the...

  • Reasons

    Why, excuses, rationale, justifications, explanations, verbal diarrhoea, reasons, etc. In the end, the myriad and infinite possibility of reasons...

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Scroll to Top