You can rethink what you’re always doing, unintentionally.

Shajedul Karim

Mar 9·6 min read

I’m 17 and writing on Medium and it’s something I’m not proud to admit today.

I thought I was the coolest ever: “I started early.” Damn, I’m the foolest ever: I fell into the trap early.

It’s normal though.

I tell myself I want to gently touch people’s interior and remind them how smarter they are. It sounds cool. It helps me be on track. It is also what can make things easier in this world: I know transactional relation sucks. Money is the biggest stock of transactional relationships. The way I can decrease the value of money is to increase the value of humans. I can do that by making them think.

I make people think with my words. That is now my purpose in life. But this is something I didn’t think to do from birth. I started writing, fell in love with it, then I found my purpose.

But I didn’t get started with writing out of thin covid air either.

I was bored of being boring at home with zero friends and started learning programming from different sources. I fell in love with two apps. I offered them my hand for free. Now I realize, maybe my actual intention was to game them off by learning their game. I was 15 and foolish. One of them replied. I acted smart and didn’t get anything. I then pretended to be dumber than I am and actually became smart.

I took every task I got no matter I can do it or not. I even stole tasks. I replied to the play store and app store reviews, I replied to the emails, wrote and proofread Instagram content and captions, tried comment marketing, managed the social media channels and the marketing team, had fun with other volunteers, pitched celebrities for endorsement, failed at influencer marketing, organized book plan and launching and experimented twenty-three other different things and found something I love: marketing.

I then gave an excuse to my team: “Medium.com is bad for marketing.” I had to write here to prove my point. I started writing seriously. I love it now.

I now realized why everything started: I wanted an identity. I didn’t talk at school my whole life. I had zero true friends. I was dumb.

The Extreme Search for Identity

Most problems start in childhood.

Childhood is awesome. You think you’re the literal part of your parents because of too much hampering or controlling done, especially by your parents.

You’re left to be independent as you approach your teenage years and slowly you realize you’re a separate identity. You can no longer break things or shout at the waiter because you no longer have someone’s solid back.

As you aren’t experienced enough to have your own separate identity, you get confused. “Do I even have an identity?” Even your parents didn’t tell you about your identity or teach you how to find one.

Then you suffer an identity crisis: “Okay, so I study in high school. I’m a high school student. But…there are millions of high school students. So, I’m a Pink Tubelight high school student. But, there are still thousands of high school students here. What do I do now? What’s my separate individual identity?”

You start finding your identity everywhere. You look around yourselves. You see who are the ones people respect the most or think are the coolest. That’s why the environment is so crucial for children’s growth and development.

You then start doing their work and realize the work is not that cool.

Social media makes it even worse. Some children of your age are doing something better and people are recognizing and appreciating that but you’re good at writing and nobody is giving a damn. You feel even more confused:

“I’m great at writing and this doesn’t have much value and he’s good at studies which people are recognizing but I can’t shift to studies because I didn’t put much time from start. So I’m good for nothing?

To look mature and older, you then fake your ascent. To look cool and senior, you get hair colour, or get into drugs, or get bike…or girlfriends.

You do things that you know sucks but makes you look fake cool. You then never earn any skill.

We all crave an identity because we all want to belong in society and the world.

Explore the hell out of the tyre.

Most of the times I don’t know what I am doing and it’s good enough. Not knowing is good enough.

Priyanka Chopra realized this and made it cool. She is Unfinished. Her memoir is Unfinished. She is still Becoming.

Michelle Obama wants to make Becoming so eternal, she titled her memoir Becoming.

Some parents block children from childhood itself. They assign their career occupation from age 3.

Touch everything you can (if there’s nothing dangerous written).

Everything in this world is risky but certain things are life-threatening.

This is something weird I figured: anything with the colour brown is oftentimes life-threatening. Cigarettes. Wine. Brown woman (body, eyes, hair).

There’s a risk even in the air you breath. There could be poisonous gas. Or the currently trending, the everlasting, covid air.

Love is incredible. People say this. I saw two of my friends almost going suicidal after falling in love. This could be harsh: you don’t need someone in your teenage years. You’re the strongest this time. If you can pass this period without a special one, your life will be special.

Try everything you think matters and you’ll matter to everyone in the future. I started with nothing. I didn’t even know there’s something called skill. I thought programming is just an occupation. I was open to everything and everything opened up for me.

Maybe I still suck but I rock. You can rock too when you explore whatever you can no matter if others think you suck.

A toothpaste touches every corner to shine you. Be the toothpaste.

That’s why passion business got so popular.

You can choose whatever passion you want and still explore. I can write about writing. Also self-help. Or romance if I will. I can choose motivation under self-help. I can try writing on Medium or Vocal or News Break. I can also write a book on things I don’t know.

You can try softcore music. Jazz? What about hip hop? You can even have any genres you wish inside those. Sing in front of your darling or your dog.

Corporate jobs are not as much fun as it seems. You’re dead here. You can’t live. Because you can’t move. Moving is fun. In fun is living.

I’m a marketer apart from a writer. I can market a product in innumerable ways, but I can’t market a thousand products together. Passion business gives you that freedom.

But, becoming is a problem too.

Sometimes we’re so obsessed with becoming that we stop being.

Becoming is trying and exploring. Exploring is being reckless.
Being is enjoying and living. Living is being truly alive and sadless.

If I ever write a memoir, I’ll title it ‘Living’…if nobody else uses it by then, or maybe, ‘Improving.’ Or, maybe Unover? (that’s my new novel based on my life story). Because I’m growing daily. To grow is to be. To be is to live. To live is a success.

You aren’t happy and it sucks.

Oftentimes, we get reckless for success in a quest to find our identity. But here’s what you realize late: success isn’t fun. Success becomes fun because of fulfilment. We’re fulfilled when we learn something in the process of succeeding.

Life is fun together. Life is big together. Life is awesome together. Every human matters and counts. Your sadness is contagious. It spreads faster than any virus on earth. There’s negativity everywhere if you’re sad.

You can choose not to when you stop trying to be something and start being something. You can be something when you are conscious and present and happy in whatever you do or try. You can always become something later.

There’s a good side too. You’re being your hero.

You rock because you’re being your hero. You aren’t waiting for someone to help you out or save your life. You aren’t waiting for the one person that will bring rains of love for you.

You’re working for yourself and that’s a win. Hats off to you.

Here’s what you can do to be the solution and change your life:

Do what you love not what seems good or cool. Cool isn’t cool enough nowadays. Not knowing things is cool enough. Don’t stop being in a quest to becoming. Don’t charge any value for what you do and you’ll soon turn out invaluable because you did things you otherwise wouldn’t. And take your time. Because you always have time.