I'm tired of friends detracting from my plan to get the CPA certification. This world is facing overpopulation and other distressing problems like resource disappearance. While I'm still humanist and believe in humanity's capacity for the ideal, I recognize that this world may get worse before it gets better, especially as the market system is strained. I still desire to achieve a few ambitions without fail in my life and there's a requirement of money and mobility for those. So in light of the world's peril, the value of an extra business qualification in fetching English-teaching work and pay, and the probability that the certification will be reciprocal with worldwide qualifications in a few years, I've chosen to get my CPA.
Meanwhile, some of my friends are hoping to get where they want to go just by feeling good about it and hoping. In a world where all entertainment and religion validates the notion that good things come to those who wait, yeah, it's pretty understandable that some people would think that, and rationalize it through spiritual concepts like magnetism to one's desires or gravity, or something. They have lofty goals too, but don't really subsume them under an actionable plan to realize them. Things don't happen in this universe because people wish them to. They come through action. If you want to go somewhere, you must travel there. If you want to meet someone, you must find them. If you want to achieve something, you must work towards it.
And so, I've got a reasonable goal, achievable in six months, that will buttress my European ambition and provide a very valuable backup plan for the future if things sour. It will also probably immediately translate into higher earnings in my jobs. This goal involves studying something
I don't like but can tolerate and feel comfortable with. And this is an egregious sin to my friends.
I'm not sure where they think the world around them came from. It didn't materialize out of some vision of future civilization. It was built, just like great works of art or the infrastructure we have from the New Deal, by hands and hard work, whether on the field or behind a desk. And while I think the market system is riddled with flaws and corruption and acknowledge that I don't like accounting, I recognize that I have some lofty ambitions, and to be realized, they require work. I understand that many people fall into this line of thinking with far too much acceptance and for the only purpose of satisfying consumerist wants. For me, it is the most effective and direct route to completing my goal.
Occupations are such a minefield of "conventional wisdom" that I guess it's hard for some to let reason and logic cut through aphorisms like "do what you love", which confuse the process and the result. Down the line, I have an idea about using my accounting skills to get involved with a gender equality non-profit or the UN and do some serious damage to inequality in the world. Accounting is no big joy to me, but I'd be doing what I love: improving humanity. The process itself might not be what I love the most, but the result, created in realtime through my every action, would be. Even in the most beloved pursuits, there are still some obstacles to overcome, and some darkness and tedium to navigate. Ahab had to weather rough seas to reach Moby Dick. Great thinkers still had to tinker with language to convey their thoughts. Great artists still had to select and apply the right medium to translate their impressions. And great dreamers must still find ingenious, reliable ways to bring about their visions.
So fuck wishing. If a dream's over the horizon, then I'll rip it from the sky with these two arms!
