You Are Important

Millions of students are being misled to believe that they have to be passionate about something. I certainly was, starting with college application essays. When I first tried to answer the question of what I had a burning passion for, nothing came to mind. I was your typical teenager who grew up playing video games and going to school; I did extracurriculars but none I could really say was my life's calling. But I had to write about something. While writing that college essay, I put on the mask of an enthusiastic data scientist, the major I was applying to. Look around you, data is everywhere! Data is so powerful! Data, data, I love data! It's not that I didn't think it was interesting, but I really tried to envision myself becoming an expert data scientist writing articles for The Pudding, or perhaps briefing the President on my data analysis revealing how to stop global warming for good. After masquerading as a data scientist served its purpose to gain admission to colleges, I thought once more about what my passion was. I came up with a new one, becoming a professor in computational linguistics and making a breakthrough in translating languages while retaining the original meaning. I could already imagine the applause. I tried to see if I could join a natural language processing (NLP) research lab but I was unable to find a lab that would take in a student that has zero knowledge or track record with NLP. Go figure. Still fixated on the idea of becoming an expert in NLP, as a first-year¹ undergrad I turned down an offer from a motivated Ph.D. student to contribute to research projects because they were from another field, not related to language. I wanted to show that I could fight against odds and persevere to pursue my passion since, after all, it is my passion.

This, of course, was a mistake. I was not passionate about NLP, in fact I knew very little about it. I just wanted to be someone important, and in my brain, that meant that I had to accomplish extraordinary things.

"I hate writing, I love having written."
— Dorothy Parker

Everyone wants to be important, because everyone needs to be needed. It's a fundamental feature of human nature, a desire we feel as strong as hunger. It's how humans can cooperate and do things for each other and build societies. You have a duty to fulfill, for yourself or for others, and are appreciated for it. We are wired to need to feel important, constantly. As a result, people get sick² when they don't get appreciated often enough. Generally, the most important thing to a person is themself, and all interactions between people stem from this³.

My artificial passion fell apart once again as I resumed daily life as a student. After the induced pridefulness wore off, I was more open to things. The next research opportunity I had was also not in NLP, but this time I gratefully accepted and worked honestly. I'm glad I did, because I met interesting people, gained technical experience, and opened my eyes to other meaningful areas of work.

I don't doubt that people who are experts in their field started doing what they were doing because they felt passionate about it. However, passion seems to be an exception, not the norm. For most, work is just work— a way of life that pays the mortage and bills. I often think about my friends who didn't lie to themselves the way I did looking at the future. They have part time jobs as pizza deliverers or stocking shelves and they go to school and the way they have fun is still the same⁴, hanging out together. If this is you, hi, sorry about how obnoxious I sound. The truth is I'm still the same too. Whatever work I'm doing for a research lab or company is not that much more important than any other kind of work you might be doing. It might sound flashier but in all honesty I don't do these things for any grand reason. It's just nice to feel important, and to be able to pay rent.

"Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work."
— Stephen King

Of course, honest passion is a powerful thing. Sometimes passion just grows; maybe you really did tinker with toy trains when you were 8 years old and have always been drawn to trains ever since. Kevin Mitnick⁵, legendary hacker and cybersecurity expert, was certainly one of these honest people who simply had an obsession with hacking. For these types, nobody told them they had to do anything, but they go and spend all their free time and more doing it anyway. They don't know what else they'd do, in fact they'd feel sick if they stopped. Doing what they do is as natural is breathing and having lunch everyday. To others, what they do seems unnatural, it sounds like such an unbalanced lifestyle with unnecessary risks and sacrifices just for one thing.

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."
— Ernest Hemingway

Again, honest passion is rare, but the American culture of individualism and hyperspecialization in the economy incentivizes this kind of passion, leading people to feign it. Beyond college essays, there is a lot at stake in the business of passion: entreprenuership. The kind of startup founders that typically become successful⁶ are those who emanate optimism and unwavering passion for their business. One extreme example would be Elizabeth Holmes⁷. She deluded others and herself in one fairytale vision of the future, a humongous lie that could not be sustained forever. I do think a delusion can sometimes become a strategy to sustain all your focus and love into one thing, but like the phrase "fake it till you make it", I would take this with a grain of salt. You do all the things a passionate person would do and devote yourself to your work every day, but if the act of working doesn't generate that genuine enthusiasm, the kind that comes from within yourself, then it might be best to set it aside.

"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you."
— Ray Bradbury⁸

You can try to gain your sense of importance by accomplishing big things, but the journey there can be harsh and lonely if you try to be special all by yourself. My dad who is a realtor once had this multimillionaire client, a savvy man who owned multiple malls and buildings in downtown Los Angeles, who unfortunately passed away. This person was known to be stingy and a bit unfriendly, fixated only on building his own wealth, and so few people came to his funeral.

I'll bet that you wouldn't want to be like this man. According to an Bronnie Ware, who worked as a caregiver for several years, the most common deathbed regrets she heard were⁹:

1. "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me."
2. "I wish I hadn't worked so hard."
3. "I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings."
4. "I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends."
5. "I wish I had let myself be happier"

When I was dreaming about becoming an expert in data science or NLP, I was prepared to give up time with friends, family, and even considered leaving my partner in order to devote more time to pursue a career. This was very foolish, please don't do this. I know that if I really did this, I probably would have regretted it my whole life, even if I did eventually make big accomplishments.

"Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness."
— George Orwell

I no longer seek to derive my sense of importance in work output, because I know I am plenty important because of my friends and family. Sometimes I say stupid things and make mistakes or even outright lie, but they forgive me. When I do make little accomplishments like getting a good grade, passing an interview, or baking tasty cookies, they let me know they're proud and happy for me.

We love to share about ourselves and be listened to. We talk and talk and write and write and post our pictures and videos all because we want to be heard and seen, for a moment, by someone else out there. For just a moment, to earn their gaze and attention, and be appreciated.

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."
— Maya Angelou

Everyone is like this! The feeling of importance can be gained in many shapes and forms, but every single person on Earth would love to have an honest compliment, even if its from their worst enemy. The other week I complained about a lot of things because it's easy to complain but I'm going to try to make an effort to do the more difficult thing which is to be appreciative about others and brighten their day. (The best thing about this is that I also get to feel important by making someone else feel important instead of trying to make myself important by talking about my problems which other people don't find important.)

Let it be known that I am grateful to you too, then, for giving your attention to my ramblings, and I would gladly spare a moment to thank you personally. Even if you are future me, re-reading this at a later time, to reflect on a past self, I want to thank you. Whoever you are, whatever you do, regardless of what happened today or this week or the past year, remember that you are important.

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¹ technically I was in junior standing since I was a transfer student but oh well this is not really the point

² e.g. from getting sad/angry to more serious conditions, depression, attention-seeking behaviors, disorders

³ You can learn more about this reading How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It's one of the pioneers of the "self-help" genre and immensely popular. If you can get past the initial irks of self-help language (alleviated by the playful 1930's prose), there are a lot of great truths and stories inside.

⁴ actually, now the difference is that there might be alcohol ;)

⁵ Mitnick recently passed away in 2023 and I am really sad about this. It's a bit of a long read if you don't know anything about networks or computers but I highly reccommend reading his book The Ghost in the Wires.

⁶ or at least, perceived to become successful by venture capitalists

⁷ Her crazy story is now immortalized as a Hulu series The Dropout and in the book Bad Blood by journalist John Carreyrou.

⁸ from the Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury.

⁹ The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing by Bronnie Ware