a life not lived
Vložit
- čas přidán 14. 03. 2022
- Hey pumpkins,
sorry for being so inconsistent.
I'm honestly debating the end of this channel.
I made this video to explain why I've not been posting; and to keep in line with my narrative of honesty. I never pretend to be well when I'm not. I don't pretend to be happy when I'm not
The topic of today is sort of dark and a little sad I guess. I'm essentially feeling overwhelmed by life, the concept of growing old and pre-emptive regret.
Thanks for watching
Didie
Hey Didie, thanks so much for taking the time out of your day to put together this video, and I can reassure you many of us watched it until the end.
Life is definitely unpredictable, and it's something we should learn to cherish. Naturally, it's so easy to get caught up with life that we lose sight of the more important things, and many people don't realize this until the later years of their lives and look back on their lives with some regrets.
For those who're about to finish or have finished post-secondary, there is this continuity that will disintegrate once we're no longer students because we had this routine set out for us starting from kindergarten to the end of post-secondary. Due to this disruption, it is natural to feel anxious and nervous about the future, which to my last point, causes some to lose touch with their inner emotions, leading to the above outcome. This looming doubt over whether things will be ok causes us to be fearful or nervous for the future, preventing us from leading the lives we want to live out of fear that the worst possible outcome will happen.
Listening to you self-reflect on this topic was eye-opening since I also share these thoughts. I also wanted to thank you for using your platform to discuss topics that people may feel reluctant to talk about due to many reasons. You've done a tremendous job championing a safe and inclusive environment where people in a similar predicament can pop in here and chat with other like-minded individuals.
Regardless of your decision for the channel, I wish you well for the future, I know you're going to do great things in your life, it's only a matter of time, and you'll live the life you'll want to live. Continue to be yourself and remember to believe in your ability to bring about change; the future is yours!
if doesn't feel like a coincidence that i bumped into this video. I recently had a serious accident riding a bike. I ended up being lucky without serious injuries and most importantly still being alive. anxiety, stress, fear of not achieving, the pressure to constantly work hard in university affects my life a lot. Having expectations in life and wanting to achieve certain goals before life ends is something i think about a lot. so thanks for sharing a sad yet relatable topic. know that you're not alone and that some people are willing to help. Be okay with not doing everything perfect and try to stay positive because 'life' itself should feel like an opportunity instead of a task that you constantly have to fulfill. lots of love x
Very relatable, having to choose in general, and specifically having to choose one career is one of the worst and hard things in life. Existentialist philosophers were talking about this a lot. The school of life youtube channel has some vids about that. If it’s any confort, I study psychology and ask myself all the time if I’m doing the mistake of my life by not studying something more practical and less risky. Im also artistic, I do it in my free time instead of as a career.
Your not alone so much people are not doing what they really want because of fears,social pressure etc..but you should know that your in control of your own life you can just leave what your doing whenever you want overcome your fears and try other stuff exemples:go to cinema school , move somewhere else...make mistakes . At the end of the day money and security won't mean shit when your life is over. Live in the present for yourself and not others or concept and ideas from society.
Thanks so much for that Lucas. I really appreciate it. You're right about taking a chance on things; it's better to try and have no regrets. I'm going to try and do that more as I go. I think the best thing I can do right now is try and reach out to people that inspire me and have them tell me about how they made their own way. Also doing little projects that I can manage on the side; to show myself I can do it
Thanks for the support xox really make my day
You have no idea how much this video resonates with me. I've gone through-and have not yet resolved-the exact same dilemma.
I am a highly creative and artistic type. As a young kid, I was always drawing and writing stories. In high school and the first two years of college, I was always creating music (which you can find on my CZcams channel).
After dabbling a bit with potentially majoring in psychology (taking 3-4 classes which I found very interesting), I ultimately opted for accounting because it felt like the right, practical, sensible, reasonable, responsible thing to do.
While I would've loved nothing more than to pursue a career in music or something like international relations (maybe becoming a diplomat someday), I figured that, as someone who had always been a more artistic/creative type interested in politics and history and who was bad (relatively speaking) with math and never had a background in computers as a hobby, I'd be a more balanced, well-rounded person by pursuing something like accounting, which I felt to be the most lucrative technical field that wasn't totally beyond what I was capable of (unlike something like engineering or computer science).
I sold myself on the idea by telling myself that, as a young "poor" person (middle-class parents, but no money of my own), I wouldn't be able to be successful in music anyway, and that once I had "made it" as an accountant, I could afford to spend money pursuing music again, with the budget for things like instruments, microphones, recording studios, session musicians, etc. Well, now I definitely have the money to pursue music as a hobby, but it's clear I'm never going to be able to become the next John Williams or Danny Elfman, and I really don't even have the time to pursue music as a side hobby, especially now that I've got a family.
I'd like to offer advice, but ultimately, it's all about the level of risk you're willing to live with. Pursuing an artistic or creative career is very risky. But it may be a risk worth pursuing; that's something you've got to decide for yourself.
For what it's worth, the world does need accountants, and part of the cold, hard truth of growing up is realizing that the world cannot accommodate everyone's hopes and dreams. Nobody truly wants to be an accountant, janitor, waitress, driver, customer service representative, cashier, actuary, patent attorney, paralegal, salesman, etc. Even jobs that might seem fulfilling from an outsider's perspective-doctor/surgeon, video game designer, etc.-could be stressful due to intense workloads and deadlines layered on top of an otherwise inherently interesting/fulfilling vocation. But society needs all these people doing these jobs in order for it to function, and there is a certain philosophical wisdom in transcending your own ego and realizing the world doesn't need to revolve around your hopes and dreams in order to find your peaceful place within it. Being able to step outside of your head and appreciate life irrespective of your personal desires is a fundamental tenet of Buddhism, to my limited knowledge.
So for what it's worth, whereas I used to derive joy from composing music but feel stress thinking about the future and the risk of financial insecurity, I now feel comfortable about my financial security and look forward to spending time with family, but at the cost of frankly not enjoying my job, which is boring but, in the greater scheme of things, is one that would make 99% of the world's population jealous and therefore something to be grateful for. I basically get paid to use a computer all day. It's not exactly living the dream, but many people work far harder for far less compensation, so I derive peace from remembering that grander perspective.
In my experience, the most enjoyable part of accounting is the people you work with. While you may feel like an outcast being an artistic/creative type in a left-brained field, the truth is that the overwhelming majority of accountants also just pursued the field for pragmatic reasons. You could look at this pessimistically and see this as a situation in which most accountants are living unfulfilling lives. You could also look at this optimistically and see this as a situation in which most accountants are just fellow regular people doing what they need to do to make a living and can be plenty of fun to be around. The people I work with are great, and knowing I work with and for a team of great people makes life-as mundane as my job may be-more tolerable.
For what it's worth, a happy medium between something more individualistic and the corporate drudgery of being an accounting employee is trying to strike it out on your own as an accounting entrepreneur. You could open your own firm, either as a tax accountant, a bookkeeper, or a consultant. You'll still be doing accounting, but you'll be doing it on your own terms and dealing with all the excitement and challenges that come along with that.
Also, keep in mind that accounting is the language of business. So you could use your knowledge to either join an interesting organization whose mission you support or even start your own business-maybe in the artistic/creative field-and leverage your knowledge to outmaneuver the other entrepreneurs who have big, lofty dreams but have not invested the time and effort into mastering the basics like budgeting and forecasting.
Hope this helps! I'm still navigating this issue myself and by no means have all the answers but am more than happy to discuss (as you can tell by the mountain of text above).
Hey M.S
Thanks for popping by. I find your story really compelling and relatable. I don't think our situations are very different; in fact...I don't see how my life could turn out much different than yours.
It's not realistic to think you're the exception, no matter how hard that is to accept.
Foolishly; I started this channel thinking it would "pop off" maybe. I didn't believe it would;I hoped it might. But more than a year later I experience 0 growth. I learned to appreciate it for what it was; which is a group of people that come back and interact with me as frequently as I post. It's a fair trade for my time.
I think it's hard to accept that you're not "exceptional" to people and can't capture their attention with you skill and qualities.
It's upsetting because you see other people distinguish themselves and think: "why not me?"
But the thing is, you do stand out sometimes, in ways others can't. It might not be mediated, widely known and glorious, but it doesn't make you any less interesting.
I think that being pragmatic is a way to afford the fluff too, on the side. But fluff in and of itself is like too much candy; rarely sustainable, prone to sugar highs and big crashes a few hours later. I would compare accounting to boiled potatoes and chicken. Not exciting, but sustaining.
Anyway, I got really deep into food metaphors here; thanks for sharing
All in all, I totally agree with your entire comment.
-Didie
@@tackydidie For what it's worth, I bet the people in your life-at least your family-think you're exceptional.
CZcams is pretty brutal-there's so much competition for people's attention, and unless you encounter pure dumb luck, you've got to grind away at it for years before you finally start to see the sort of growth that could result in it eventually replacing a full-time job. That said, you're still young (even though no one ever really feels young since they only have the perspective of hindsight and not foresight, but I digress), so if you enjoy making CZcams videos, by all means, feel free to keep making them at a pace that pleases you. Of course, the CZcams algorithm does penalize that sort of inconsistency, but to actually hit it big on CZcams without randomly going viral takes a practically insane level of commitment and sacrifice. CZcams's business model basically relies on millions of people creating free content in the hopes of eventually one day hitting it big. Everyone sees the top 1% (0.1%?) who make it big, and not the other 99% (99.9%?) who eventually give up, or just remain content with never blowing up.
Anyway, whatever path you choose, I hope you're able to find a meaningful life with it. It's cliché, but you are not your job-even if you choose to be an accountant to pay the bills, you can still live your best life with the people you love and spend your free time however you want. As an accountant, I'd love if there were more fellow artistic/creative types in our profession.
For what it's worth, many people do find fulfillment in their accounting careers, and I bet many of them couldn't have foreseen that when they were just starting out. The nice thing about accounting is that it looks great on your resume, so even if you eventually decide to pivot in another direction, it still doesn't hurt to have a background in accounting to fall back on, and I wouldn't consider it a waste of time, especially for someone who's risk averse.
Assuming money weren't an issue, what sort of creative path do you think you'd take? I think you mentioned writing; perhaps that's something you could do in your spare time (maybe in place of CZcams, at least for now). I think you might've also mentioned wanting to be an actress; maybe instead of vlog-style CZcams videos, you could try experimenting with sketch-style videos to get some experience with acting and seeing what sort of reception you get.
Having lost both my grandmothers last year-with my grandfathers having passed long before that-I've also recently become much more sensitive to the fact that life passes by far more quickly than any of us can truly realize, and that delayed gratification shouldn't be synonymous with delayed life. It's important to work hard to build a better future for yourself, but it's also important to enjoy the journey. But perhaps most importantly of all, it's important to be able to derive joy intrinsically without it being contingent upon having a certain job or vocation. Gratitude can go a long way in that, as it helps you to contextualize your problems and not ruminate about all the perceived shortcomings of your life. From my perspective as an outsider, you've got many things working in your favor-health, youth, beauty, a loving family, a good boyfriend, and an academic record to be proud of that could lead to a promising, financially successful career. Oh, and you've convinced 625 people you're interesting/genuine enough to be worth following. Not bad!
-Matt
Hey Didie,
Thanks for sharing what you're feeling and going through. It takes guts to put it out to the world this way. I personally have felt and been in such situations quite a lot and I can understand how it feels to be there.
There is this line that helps me:
'life is not what happens to you it is what you make out of it'
'We can't control our past but we definitely can our future'
Strength and positive thoughts to you. Tough times don't last for long. Wish you get through this phase soon and start rockingg again⭐
Hi Himanshu,
Thanks for popping in! I definitely feel vulnerable having this type of content out in the open. It's a struggle to leave it there because I'm aware some people might interpret it in various ways and worry about my state of mind.
Like is rollercoaster of emotions, especially if you're slightly paranoid like myself and tend to over-over-overthink things.
And on that note, you're right; this video is an example of my feelings hitting rock bottom. I experience this type of thing on a monthly basis. I usually feel much better a dew days after. That's what I always try to keep in mind.
I encourage everyone to always recognize that when you feel at your lowest, it's usually a momentary thing. You just need to know you won't feel as bad as the time progresses. Being less self-invested helps. Turning your attention to others is really the way to go so far as I've learned.
Thanks for the quotes ;) They're good to keep in mind
-Didie
I’m also an accounting student yet I feel the exact same way. Luckily many of my friends are also in the same program
Can’t wait for a new video! 😍 Support from France !!
Thanks Wiiniih! I really appreciate it xox
Just want to say thanks for making all of those videos they helped, but sorry that making them makes you feel that way, you should definately not make them if that’s the case. What’s been working for me when I start to think too much is to do something to take my mind off it. I think your thinking way too much. I think it’s important to have passions, but at the same time something I’ve learned from working with a lot of older people the last year, we’re in good shape( idk about you for sure but seems like you aren’t in a horrible situation since ur still in school for business) but as long as you stick to the plan(your job doesn’t have to be your passion or define you) you’ll be good. Also in your case I don’t know for sure but you seem to be huge on self help and motivational quotes and stuff. I think it’s good to self improve, but honestly watching videos, reading those books, following influencers and all that stuff made me feel worse. Ever since I stopped taking self help and marivational stuff and metaphors so seriously, I started actually improving and stopped putting so much pressure on myself. So stop putting so much pressure on yourself, and so what you love for fun but don’t count on that being your career. You define yourself not what job you have. And about the death thing, I used to be scared that someone I love is gonna die, but now I just know it’s gonna happen so hopefully when it happens I can move past it, but I don’t think about it until it happens. My grandmother who I’m very close too isn’t given that much time left, but instead of letting the sadness ruin my day im just making sure I spend every weekend with my grandparents. I feel good because of that, and when it happens she would want me to move on. And I treat death like that.
Moral of the story is don’t stress yourself out because you don’t want the job your gonna get, and if you really hate it try for a different job, but at the end of the day your gonna need a job. Also don’t let the idea of self improving consume you and make you feel worse about yourself. Improve gradually by doing little things better. Last but not least try to move on from things that you think are hurting you, like CZcams. Also if this is your last video and you read this far, thank you for letting me vent to you it helped a lot. You’ll be good though wish you the best of luck👍
Slim ;) always there with some of the best advice. Thanks for taking the time to write me this message
Haha of course I read to the end! I don't know that this will be my last video but until im inspired to make something I enjoy I won't do it. I have a video in the works right now, a little vlog. I do them when I can spare a minute, which I really can't during this end of semester. But to get back your point, I always try to make content that at least helps people reflect on themselves, and maybe just let them know whatever it is they're dealing with; they're not alone.
So for me to put vulnerable stuff out there; it's the biggest compliment to have you actually understand it for what it is and let me know that I didn't just send some metaphorical bottle to the ocean.
Thanks so much again
Talk soon xox
Didie
Hi Didie, thank you for making this video! As a young graduate also in accounting, I feel like my life has no purpose and that i have nothing to look forward to! Feels good to know that other people are also feeling like this! Please keep making videos, since you are helping many people! xxx
Hey Lolzzz839,
I totally understand how you feel. I think we're not the only ones struggling with the definition of what it means to be a "brown socks"/"white collar"/boring accountant. Lots of people in my class when I was in the bachelors studying to get into the CPA program were having to compromise and sort of come to terms with their own vision of themselves and the work they do. It's not easy to distinguish what you do from who you are. Lots of people just assume that what you do is what you are. But never let that define you. Don't let people tell you who you are. Let yourself be the judge of that.
My big mistake has always been to seek validation in others where I should have been my only judge.
We do what we can with what we have.
Much like you aren't the sum of the things you own, you're not your job.
You are you irrespective of what you do.
Best of luck & keep me posted ;)
-Didie
Hey you’re special to us! Lots of hugs 🤗
Thank you for posting this! I appreciate you for being so vulnerable and sharing! To be honest, I have had very similar thoughts to you since I've graduated college. I'm a bit lost with my life right now too. But seeing you make a video like this makes me feel less alone in my journey of finding myself... I hope that every one that is going through a tough, lost time like us, can attain a consistent sense of peace one day. Thank you again for sharing! You've earned a subscription from me.
Hey Robert,
thanks so much for taking the time to pop in. It helps me a great deal too to know I'm not alone. Of course, we all know we're rarely alone in any given situation. Lots of people just do through things in silence, for fear of coming across overly negative, childish, immature etc. I struggle with that same fear of making a fool of myself publicly, but this channel is sort of my own dedicated effort to do things that make me uncomfortable in order to grow my tolerance. At the end of the day, I wanted to come clean about how confusing it is to actually morph into an adult when you're an anxious person with a penchant for "less pragmatic" occupations.
When you're younger, dreams are encouraged. People ask you what you want to be and tell you you can do anything; that's the bias we grow up with when we're lucky enough to be afforded those illusions.
As you grow into society, it becomes more or less impossible to ignore that you can't be anything; that dreams are mainly understood as ridiculous ideals and that if you're committed to them without proof of possible success, you're automatically a failure. Peace is something you get when you trade in your "dreams" or learn to have new ones, I think.
Mostly, I would just suggest to try and stick to your daily life right now; make sure you find a reason to be happy every day, and keep your aspirations as motivation rather than a dead-set goal.
It's a rough world for sure. it's just nice to know we're all here together. So thanks the comment and sorry for the babbling ;)
-Didie
You are lovely. You are thoughtful. You are smart. You are beautiful. You live in a unique place with a nuclear family. You have a good boyfriend. You've made a mature choice in these times and this economy. Nothing about any of that is ordinary. Movies are not the standard, but I would still watch this one. And creativity can be manifested in multiple ways, including this channel. We often go through low points, but if we can find our flow/balance, things start to look up. Living large is overrated, and often messed up. Living full should be the goal, and you're well on your way. I hope this feeling has passed, and you're able to take satisfaction from making a living in order to live, and that you live creatively. (Sometimes when study or work something we love, it kills it too.) Keep looking for outlets and you'll find your way.
I think alot of ppl feel this way now days . You pretty and intelligent . And my favourite CZcamsr . Sometimes we have to sacrifice our passions and keep the as side projects for now . It's ok . Just do you . It's life not a movie !!! Even the most best actress have terrible days . That's how it goes . Life great man ✌👍😋
Thanks Alex! It means a lot. Thanks for being supportive; I'm always looking forward to your comments
I have my ups and downs. It really depends on the day
We all learn from our mistakes . It's how we learn . I'm 32 now and coming out of a really hard stage also . Just keep going . If you ever make vids again give me a invite or something . God bless Didie 😉