Who is Johnny Thi?

Jul 27, 2017
3 min read

A quirky, awkward, shy character. If I were to go down in history as some sort of influencer - those are the traits I'd want people to remember me as.

I spend countless days, hours into the day and night questioning who I really am. I'm twenty-one, I should really have this figured out by now, right?

But it seems like I'm not alone. Everyone in our generation always looked at people in their 20s like they were some sort of alien race (adults really blooming with maturity).

For my fellow 21 year olds who haven't really pinpointed on what exactly they can't figure out for themselves as far as purpose in life goes - this goes out to you.

See I didn't exactly stay on the path. This path, straight line path is, to graduate high school, grab that diploma, dive head first into post-secondary pursuing what we have an idea of what we wanted to do for the rest of our lives - I guess the education system here in North America thought that 4 years was enough for us to figure ourselves out.

To the people who truly did figure it out, I applaud you. But to the people who haven't really, keep reading.

Highschool life was not for me. The stagnancy of my life was destroying my spirit. I was no longer myself, and I knew the journey from where I was, was going to be a scary uncertain one, but at some point I had no choice. I couldn’t live separate from myself anymore, so I started walking without any idea where I was going.

I decided to roll with the punches, move to a complete different city and be a stranger to every single soul around me. This shifted my perspective, breathed some life into me, and gave me a strong sense of independence. Now you might be thinking, how does one just afford to pack things up and move to a complete new city with nothing?

My answer is, you have to fail.

There were many frightening moments, many moments I didn’t think I would make it. I made mistake after mistake, which catapulted me in the exact direction I was meant to go. I don’t regret any of it, because all of the wrong choices led me to the right place, every step of the way.

If there’s one piece of advice I would give every person, it would be to get lost.

Finding yourself is not a comfortable process, nor should it be. It is petrifying.

This period of confusion is the catalyst for questioning everything, for evaluating your life and your place in it. When you start asking the questions, you will find the answers.

Just be prepared — your answers may not be the answers you want, but they are always the answers you need.

If you already feel lost, listen closely. Your spirit is screaming, “Help! I’m bored and confused. This present circumstance is no longer fulfilling me.

Start looking again. Search every corner. Try new things. Fail miserably and then try something else until you find it. Keep going until you laugh again, until you discover understanding, acceptance, happiness, joy, and most importantly, purpose.

Do something, anything. Do anything that is the opposite of what you are doing right now.

Get uneasy, get scared, become a beginner again. If you think you know it all, find something you know nothing about, and learn it well.

Observe how you respond and react. You will learn something new about yourself, not only about your character, but what turns on your light. Once you’ve found something that turns on your light, you’ve found purpose.

When you place yourself in foreign situations, you arrive in your most concentrated form. You will always bump into yourself in the unfamiliar.

The most difficult part of this process is the aloneness. You can’t rely on anyone else to guide you in the right direction. This is a solo mission. Doing it alone is the whole point of the journey.

This is your one life. It would be a tragedy to never discover yourself.

You can’t discover yourself unless you look for yourself, so get lost.