My favorite movie is La La Land. I’ve seen it about four times already and every time I watch it, I can never get enough of it. The acting, story line, cinematography, the music. I created a Spotify playlist of all my favorites from that masterpiece.

Recently I watched it again, but this time it was different. I found myself crying at the end. I thought to myself as tears were falling, why am I so emotional watching this when I’ve seen this movie so many times? Without giving any spoilers, the reason why I was crying was because I was hit with a reality, the reality that we can’t always get everything we want in life.

As a young person in my 20’s, sometimes I find myself wandering in my own thoughts. Am I doing the right thing? Will I be happy at the end of the day? Am I sacrificing a dream for a certain success? We live in a world where as far as I know, you need money for everything. They say we should do what we love, but not everyone has that privilege.

I see many people around my age with all kinds of different jobs and I wonder if they are really happy with it. Is that their passion? Is that what they always wanted to do?

what do you like to do?

In the movie La La Land, Mia played brilliantly by Emma Stone wants to be an actress. As the audience, we follow her story along with her relationship with Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) who wants to pursue jazz and open his own jazz club. These are two creative career paths that is not easy to take because it’s not stable, rather it is unpredictable and not always guaranteed to work out. While watching though, I could relate to Mia because I too enjoy acting and find it to be lots of fun.

Ever since I was a child, I was always into the arts. I even went to an arts high school and I think that influenced me in many ways today. While I was a student at my high school, I was exposed to all kinds of classes related to the arts. I took a film editing class, dance, art, and some acting classes. But when I think about it now, I feel like I didn’t put my all into some of the artistic classes. It was not only because I was quite shy back then, but it was also because I felt like I had to put more emphasis on the academics.

After I graduated college I thought of being a lawyer. I thought it can be a meaningful career to help others and I felt like I could be capable of doing it and would like it. But it wasn’t until I landed a job as a legal assistant for a law firm that I found myself not enjoying anything related to law. I found the work unfulfilling to me and I dreaded the days I would go and work at the law office. I was always looking forward to the weekends. It made me realize that being a lawyer was not my path.

But then the question of what comes next happens. If this doesn’t work, pick something else? I feel like that was easier said then done. I thought for hours, days, weeks. What could I do? What is it that I am good at?

One of the main conflicts and goals in my life is to have a career where I am happy at the end of the day. This doesn’t make sense to a few people because when you hear the word “happiness” with “career” it’s as if it doesn’t exist. Maybe it’s because not too many people are even happy with what they are doing, so when it is mentioned it sounds impossible to do.

But it can be possible.

take the time to do what you love

Although it has become incredibly difficult to secure a job, I keep my passions alive by not letting go of them. As I mentioned before, acting is something that I like to do. Ever since I was in high school I really enjoyed it, along with many other things like dancing and art. Whenever I have the time, I do a few of these passions of mine. I would make time to draw something or I would practice and read over a scene from a play that I like.

This blog is another example of something that I like to do. Although at times it can be difficult to make the time for it, I still do it because I like it. I think many people have passions but we are subject to often times forget about it in order to live a “comfortable” life. Many 9-5 jobs are draining yet it is something that pays the bills and we have to stick with it. But I feel like if there is something that we really want to do, we should not have to give it up completely.

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our passion is as important as our career

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I don’t want you to misunderstand that I do not think a stable career is important, because it is. All I want to share with this post is that your passions should also be a priority when accomplishing your career.

Don’t think that it is your fault that you can’t go after what you want. It is not us but the society and world we live in where many times we are forced to forget about the things we like to do.

I believe it is more common within the South Asian community where I rarely see or meet people who choose artistic career paths. The people that can do what they are passionate about are truly very lucky, and in a way it can be motivating as an example to not give up on what you really like to do, to keep trying.

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I still have moments where I find myself feeling low on where I am heading, I think a lot on if I am doing enough and it can take over my mind sometimes. However, life has a way of making things work out for you one way or the other even if it may not feel like it. It’s beautiful when people take the time to pursue their passion, and it can be anything. I believe that making the time to do the things you want is an act of self care and keeping the passion and creativity inside of you alive.

So yes, I was crying after watching La La Land because we can’t always get what we want, but we can always take the chance so we won’t regret it. Life is really precious and I think the best way to live is by doing the things you love for yourself.