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