Actively Pursuing My Passion

hi

everyone hello hello to my fellow

mission san jose warriors

um it is an absolute honor to be back

here

and that too at mission’s first tedx

event

in many years um i am

class of 2016 so it is truly very very

special to be invited back

to the very place that you know

that fostered so many wonderful memories

and

was a part of many many formative years

of my life

thinking about the speech and what i

wanted to say to my fellow warriors

really took me down memory lane

and the wonderful moments that i spent

here that i hold very very close to my

heart

i think thinking about the speech not

only took me down memory lane but also

made me wonder

what have i learned in life that these

incredibly intelligent students wouldn’t

already know

um i remember speaking at a tedx event a

few years ago

and i went back and watched that video

to

listen to what on earth i was talking

about when i was 18 years old and how

i could mold that into something that

would be relevant and helpful to all of

you

interestingly enough what i said then

still holds true

to today i have been given the very very

unique

and incredible opportunity to craft a

life for myself

that i believe in and care about

when you spend time finding and

exploring your passions

crafting your identity around what is

important to you and setting your

definition of success

you not only live a life full of purpose

but you enjoy and cherish

every step you take along the way i

think

my speech today and what i always tell

people especially in high school and

college

really resonates with the theme of

today’s

tedx msjhs which is odyssey which is

very much about the journey

i feel like from the day we’re born

throughout

our entire life we’re constantly on a

journey and

realizing small things and making sure

that you’re really living your life full

of purpose and what makes you happy

i feel like is one of the most important

parts of that journey

setting your own definition of success

that’s one of the things that i

mentioned

in crafting a life that you you truly

believe in and love

as much as i loved and cherished my time

that i spent

at mission i went to hopkins and i went

to gomes i went through and through

fremont kid

there was always this feeling that i

didn’t belong there

what was a student like me someone so

immersed in the arts

doing at one of the top stem high

schools in the country

to this day it’s it’s the biggest irony

in my opinion

my friends and peers were immersed in

stem subjects something that never

came to me naturally getting into honor

science

english and math especially you know in

middle school and high school was

something that

you know i always struggled with but i

was told that that’s what makes you

successful

taking three to four ap subjects in one

year was the norm

and i could never ever handle it

when it came time to apply to college

everyone seemed to know exactly what

they wanted to study

whereas i felt like none of the majors

applied to me

i always felt very left out during times

like these

and i believe that that’s what really

pushed me to figure out

what i was passionate about and what my

personal definition

of success was because it’s not

universal

one definition of success does not apply

to everyone

i remember going to many college

counselors when it came time to apply to

college

and at the time that i was applying i

had recently won an international

singing reality show i’d released a lot

of independent music i was touring the

world

and in many people’s eyes that was

extremely successful i had so much

success to my name

but each and every college counselor i

went to looked at my numbers

they looked at how many ap classes i

took they looked at what my gpa was

they looked at what my s.a.t score was

and

they said that the colleges that i

wanted to go to are completely out of

reach

i being the crazy person that i am

applied anyway

and i ended up at my dream school but

that

came after a lot of

feeling like i didn’t belong my peers

with great sat scores and great gpas

were applying to ivy leagues and ucs as

if they were safety schools

it took me a really long time to come to

the realization

that my definition of success is not

necessarily everyone’s definition of

success

sometimes the the bubble that you grow

up in

your peers and the way that you’re

raised

gives you a very different definition

than the definition that you

create for yourself now

reflecting back on that time i wish

that someone had told me that none of

these numbers or

the prestige of certain institutions or

what other people say

really matters because my definition of

success was very different

what i wanted to do with my life and my

career path and the standard i set for

myself

not what others set for me is what

matters at the end of the day

i’m sure a lot of you are applying to

college or

working towards applying to college one

day

i ended up at my dream school and the

funny thing is

ucla was my dream school simply because

i wanted to be in los angeles which was

the entertainment capital of the world

not because i wanted to be at ucla

specifically

and the double degree that i got i’m

probably

never going to even use

the second and third most important

thing in my experience of building a

life that i really truly care about and

want to see myself

in is spending time finding and

exploring your passions with a will to

learn

i was given an opportunity very early on

in life

to find and explore things that i am

passionate about i was able to answer

questions like what gives my life

meaning what

excites me what gives me happiness

i honestly feel like in the rat race of

life whether that’s

high school or college or after

graduating

we never stop to think about what we’re

truly passionate about and how we can

pursue something that gives us

utmost happiness i always tell this

little bit because

i feel like this little story is the

reason that i’ve made a lot of the

choices i’ve made in my life

i was talking to my dad once and he said

you know i used to learn music when i

was a kid i was so good but

those days are long gone and that’s not

something that i can ever pursue

i never understood why it always had to

be something of the past

i used to be good at this i used to be

great at this

why not why not pursue it now

it’s it’s crazy to me that people let go

of their passions and things that make

them happy you don’t necessarily need to

pursue it as a full-time career but

why don’t you do it now why don’t you

find that happiness and why don’t you go

back to what you’re truly passionate

about and what you love to do

i always think to myself when making

decisions and the crazy

decisions that i’ve made over the years

of my life

do i want to look back at this moment 15

years from now and say

i wish i did that or would i rather say

i’m glad i took that risk whether it

worked for me

or not i had so many of these exact

thoughts when i made

many many crazy decisions in my life

starting with taking a year off of high

school to go and compete

on a reality music competition whether

or not to move to la for college and

pursue something completely outside of

what my degree was in

should i opt for something safe should i

go to law school

the very thought of what if everything

worked out the way

i have it in my head that thought

and that moment pushed me to make those

decisions

not only did i spend the time to find

out what brought me happiness

i was constantly on a journey of

learning right from wrong but i never

wanted to look back

and think i wish i did that

mind you there have been many many

moments on this journey that i said

i’m glad i took that risk and it totally

did not work for me

but i don’t think i ever could have

lived with the what if

you know we think that within our high

school or college lives of

of going to the movies of drinking of

partying and spending time with friends

and

of course the the occasional studying

that we do

will somehow find the true meaning of

life

days pass us by without us realizing it

and i cannot

stress enough how important it is

to constantly teach yourself something

new each and every day

something that you love something that

you’re curious about something that you

believe in

i have friends to this day ask me all

the time i’m 25 is it too late to learn

how to sing

i always wonder how many years of your

life do you have left

60 70 80 maybe why is it at 25

that it’s too late to start something

new if you’re truly curious about it if

you truly want to do it

we all live in our little bubbles most

of us don’t even really know what’s

happening outside of our country

i have been given the absolutely

wonderful opportunity to travel all over

the world

and learn about so many different

countries

cultures and just how different people

are all over the world

and mind you not everyone gets such

opportunities but

i believe that it is so important to be

curious

it is so important to have a desire to

learn

and it is so important to learn to learn

always

some people have that knack when they

see something or pick up some instrument

or device

they want to know how it works but i

believe that

the drive and desire to constantly learn

something new is what really gives your

life dimension and purpose

and allows you to discover the things

that bring you happiness

to this day i ask my dad and so many of

my friends now that everybody

um is interviewing and getting jobs i

always ask them do you love your job do

you love

being an engineer do you love sitting in

front of a computer all day

my dad his passion is is for music and

for cricket

both of which he used to be very very

good at

what is he doing in front of a computer

i have heard way too many stories of

people who left behind their passions

because

they were never given the opportunity to

find what they truly loved to do they

were never given the opportunity to

build a life that they believed in

they were never given the opportunity to

craft their own definition of success

and more than not being given the

opportunity i believe they just never

explored

if they never explored the world they

just followed the herd

i gotta tell you when you when you do

something unconventional when you follow

your dreams and chase your passions

there’s always gonna be backlash you’re

always gonna have days when you wake up

you’re like why

did i decide to do this this was the

worst decision i made i’m having such a

terrible time this is so much more

difficult than

all the things that people are so easily

doing

and those moments and trust me i’ve had

a lot of them especially over the last

year

i always ask myself do i love what i do

do i wake up every single day excited to

go to work

do i love the people that i work with am

i happy

and the answer to those questions is

always yes

every single day is 24 hours you have to

learn something new

to do something exciting and do

something that you love doing

whatever crazy decisions you make

believe in yourself

because if an ordinary 15 year old

fremont born girl can get world famous

on a reality show

go to her dream college make her acting

debut on a netflix show then years later

be invited to speak at the very high

school that she took a year off

to go turn her life around anything in

the world is possible

life is short carpe diem