“Just Live” — Meaning Behind the Ink

Wendy Wei

Aug 8, 2016

6 min read

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What I want to do, and what inspires me

Do well in school, get a job, spend the rest of your life working a safe job, then you’re set in life.

That’s the mantra I’ve been spoon fed basically since the day I was born, and it was the life I thought I wanted to live. I thought I wanted to climb the corporate ladder just so I could have some sort of a so-called “socially acceptable” title. Like everyone else, I grew up grinding every day to try to find the meaning of my own life and what I was meant to accomplish during my short time on Earth, thinking that it would just be handed to me one day.

For as long as I could remember, I loved creating. Creating music, creating videos, creating memories. Remember what it was like to be a kid? To be able to follow your passions and spend time doing whatever the fuck you wanted without hearing “…so how will this get you a job in the future?” every five seconds?

By the time high school came around, I was told that what I loved doing couldn’t get me a job, support me financially, nor was it socially acceptable to become a freelance videographer according to my parents and peers. So throughout 3/4 of my time in high school, I struggled with some sort of anxiety while trying to find myself. I was taught that the only way to learn was in a classroom, and my social ranking and success was measured by a single number on a sheet of paper.

As an executive on a Provincial organization, having spoken at TEDx and Ignite conferences, and started my own business ventures, people have often told me that they wanted my life.

Little do they know what goes down behind the scenes.

Trying to conform to the school system lead me into a downward spiral as soon as I started 9th grade. When doing what you loved didn’t seem to matter anymore; it was all about how to choose a well-paying job in the future. To be brutally honest, all I really took away from Grade 10 Careers class was to go into health sector because the baby boomer generation was getting older…

I was getting decent grades, but unlike most people who would be proud of their performance in school, I didn’t believe that being able to regurgitate what a teacher says on a piece of paper in a certain amount of time was enough to define me as a person. I couldn’t see the value in getting perfect grades, but since it was the social norm to be an overachiever in this area, I began to slowly develop an obsession with every small detail and got frustrated when I couldn’t keep up. This lead me to the point where whenever the slightest little thing would go wrong, shit would hit the fan. I was chasing after a perfect life, but felt even more empty as a result. My lowest point was when all of this lead to 2 years of struggling with self harm as an outlet to the madness just to maintain my pristine image as a “role model” on the outside.

Then comes senior year — one of the most emotionally draining few months of my life, when I got hit with L after L…

September was a month of all nighters, trying to crunch years of studying for the SAT into 30 days
October was when I got smacked in the face with a 2080 score — not nearly enough to have a chance at the school of my dreams
November was a month I didn’t even remember because I had my nose in the books 24/7, balancing extracurricular commitments, 5 hours of sleep per night
December was a month of writing a million and one supplementaries trying to over exaggerate my accomplishments to make up for dismal first semester grades
January was a month of feeling shitty because everyone else got their first wave of universities acceptances while I still had zero
February was when I decided to scrap my forever plan of going into engineering like my parents always wanted and going into something I loved instead
March was when my inbox got flooded with rejection letter after rejection letter from universities
April was when I thought I was completely screwed for DECA internationals, but ended up going home with a 1st place in Food Marketing (still…wtf)
May was when I dropped everything (including a 3 year relationship) to take a chance to pursue a complete stranger that I completely fell head over heels for
June was when I learned that while everyone would have a relaxing summer, I would have to spend the month of July redoing a calculus course because I didn’t fulfill my admissions requirements…on top of just failing a $475 piano exam

Looking back, these were some of the things that I was most proud of. Several of these events pushed me to the point where I was tempted to go run back to freshman me, taking out every imperfection in life with self harm and anxiety. Instead, this time around it was different — these L’s became the fuel to my fire. Why? Because I was accepting life as it comes and just living.

What does it mean to “Just Live”?

To Just Live is to fail, to experience every facet of life knowing that at least every bad situation makes for a good story.

To Just Live is to choose to take the leap, and relying on faith that there will be something on the bottom to catch you although you can’t see it.

To Just Live is doing what you fear, by accepting that fear is all just perspective.

To Just Live is to relentlessly chase after the life you want, despite labels or what other people think.

August 6th was the day I woke up and decided to put an end to the bull crap by walking into a tattoo parlour and getting inked on the spot, leaving no time to ask for permission or think of the aftermath of other peoples’ reactions.

I was told “You know this is permanent, you’re going to regret it” and “You’re going into business! You don’t want other professionals seeing that.” But that’s the entire reason behind it. I needed a permanent reminder for myself that life is too short to try and stuff yourself into a box that wasn’t made for you. To just go and do shit, free of being tied down to the fear of what others will think. I don’t want to be just another typical business person just because I was pursuing a degree in that field. I won’t be defined by what I do, I want to define what I do myself. You can’t change something by being a victim of it. So many people say that they want to do something, but I wanted to be the one who actually goes out there and does it.

In the end, I’d rather be known for the life I lived, not the money I made.

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist” — Oscar Wilde

So many people are chasing one thing after another in life that they forget life is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. Your meaning in life will not be handed to you. Your meaning will come from a collection of your experiences. Whatever you want your life to be, go out there and make it happen. In the end, if you’re not having fun with it, you’re just torturing yourself.

On the road to finding yourself, never forget to stay inspired and just live.

Thank you to my own inspirations: Rory Kramer, Sam Kolder, Drew Taggart, and Nadine Sykora.

Read more: https://heywendywei.wordpress.com/