On Inspiration and Change in Life

For me, life has always been about doing what inspires me, in some way shape or form. I often had to compromise what inspired me in order to survive and pay my bills. Regardless, I have always been too stubborn to not do what I wanted.

When I reflect on the influence this behavior has had in my life, I can find it early on. As a teenager I skateboarded- for long stretches of time nothing else mattered to me, I would skateboard before and after work, and repeat daily. Hobbies and activities ebb and flow, but always find a way to wholly consume all of my free time. I have always loved building things, fixing things, and problem solving. I took this love and created a career out of fixing people’s cars for them. I later pursued this further to get an engineering degree, and in the process found that my love for building, fixing, and problem solving extended past physical things into software and math.

I am currently a machine learning engineer/data scientist/software engineer. I am lucky to have a job that pays me well, and allows me to use my brain to solve complex and rewarding problems. But I find my attention now drawn elsewhere.

I often struggle when my source of inspiration changes. I want to do something new and different and challenging, but I feel locked in to what I am doing. I find that I have mastered some specific activity and I no longer find it as challenging as I used to.

It helps me to remember that my greatest contribution to others is to do what I love. If I am not doing what I love the most, I cannot be of service to others. If I am not true to myself then I cannot effect positive change around me. I have to ask myself, what keeps me up at night? What inspires me? How do I get paid to do these things? Helping others and following my inspiration is the path to the best life I can live.