Following Your Passions in Hawaii is Hard (Advice for Hawaii's Class of 2024)

so every year I make a video offering advice for Hawaii's graduating class and so for the class of 2024 I just wanted to talk about this notion of following your passion especially when it comes to work and your career and living here in Hawaii now admittedly less than 1% of my audience is high school kids I seem to do really well with the audience between the ages of 25 to 44 but those High School seniors are going to grow up someday and maybe when they hit their mid 20s early 30s they'll find some of my videos and who knows maybe they'll find this video and think to themselves bro how come nobody told me this when I was young and so for now if you have any advice for this year's graduating class please leave it in the comments below hello Hawai hey so what you Hood no hood I I I don't know I'm kind away boy we're just doing with no hood now I'm sure you've heard the saying if you do what you love you'll never work a day in your life and this year I'm sure there'll be commencement speakers who probably give that advice but I want to push back on that notion a little bit and just talk maybe more realistically about how life is in Hawaii and why that may be more difficult than it seems now half of Hawaii's Public School seniors aren't going to college anyway so they're going to have a particularly hard time entering the workforce and especially finding something that they love to do at least initially for the other half who do choose to go to higher education well some are going to make it some are going to drop out some will finish in four years many will finish with six or seven years under their belt but with the high cost of housing and electricity and food and transportation here in Hawaii there are only a limited number of jobs that one could pick in order to afford really living here in Hawaii on your own and when you factor in the types of jobs that one could be passionate about here it's somewhat very limited and so instead I would suggest that young people find a job that they could enjoy or see themselves enjoying or at least finding some kind of meaning or deep interest that could pay the bills and then pursue their passion projects on the side and as a local guy who has a young family who bought a place and is entering middle age in I'd say a pretty nice career I wish someone would have told me that sooner okay just a few things first off your passions in your life are going to change it's completely natural during the course of my life I've had so many passions in fact I had to write these down cuz they're so many my passions over my lifetime have been volleyball golf magic puppets model cars guitar running writing children's books playing video games making YouTube videos reading and writing and so if I pursued all of my passions especially when it comes to careers I'd be broke now what I did was I found jobs that could afford me a certain quality of life where I could pursue my passion on my own time now it doesn't mean that you find a job that just makes the most amount of money so that you can pursue what you want but you actually hate the job that's not really what I'm talking about the job has to be somewhat enjoyable or interesting something that challenges you or you find meaning in I think is extremely important in a career but don't get me wrong in thinking that my job is my passion it's something that I do and I enjoy it you know going to the office being intellectually challenged I appreciate that but by no means is it even close to what I'm passionate about and that's okay because what it does afford me is a certain type of Lifestyle where I can spend time with my family can spend time with my kids where work doesn't take my entire life even if I were to make more money I want to see my family I want to spend time with my kids and I want that flexibility now the second thing is that where most people end up is not where they expected to be but that's okay that's just how life is if you ask a lot of the aunties and uncles who probably work over here if you ask them how did they end up in their career choice it's probably this very interesting and winding story to how they ended up where they thought they would be to where they ultimately ended up because there's only so much that you can plan when it comes to your career opportunities open up people retire and you might just be there at the right time and out of sheer luck that's how you found your career and frankly that's kind of the fun of it that's kind of the fun of life that uncertainty that you can only plan so much but that somehow in the end it just seems to kind of work out so unless you're willing to go all in on your passions which I think is great it's risky but it's great then I say find a job that you enjoy and pursue those passions wholeheartedly outside of work I think that's one of the reasons why I could never do this YouTube thing fulltime I mean I enjoy talking about Hawaii I enjoyed the editing I enjoyed coming up with the topics and thinking about things and having this discussion but if this were my job then what would I do when work becomes stressful I'd have nowhere to run to by the way I also realized that this is kind of like a three-part video instead of a one part video but just stick with me and the third thing is think about what you value and how you see your life going in the future what things are important to you besides just money because if you want to live a rich and trendy lifestyle well then you're going to need a job that can afford that rich and trendy lifestyle you might have to make some sacrifices but if you value spending time with your family having a family or just not letting work take over your whole life you'll also have to make certain sacrifices so that yeah you could be home every day to have dinner with your kids because I think about someone like my dad and his career he worked at the same place for 40 plus years and sure he probably could have gone to a different place probably gotten a promotion made more money but it would have required us moving to a different part of the country and he valued spending time with family he valued that stability but if he had chosen his career and maybe gone for his passions our family would be entirely different and looking back I'm entirely thankful that he made that choice because we got to grow closer with my grandmother and my cousins and overall our family was just always close sometimes it's challengeing making these video cuz I'm not sure exactly where I'm walking I'm just kind of walking and trying to get thoughts out and I end up kind of circling back anyway now for me having that flexibility and freedom to pursue the things that I love is important to me more than pay or fame or title and I'm thankful that I only have to work one job I know that there are a lot of people who have to work multiple jobs and it does do become a little bit tougher sometimes it doesn't feel like a choice but I do think it comes down to a choice we can choose what kind of job we want to do if we don't enjoy it or if it's something that isn't fulfilling to us or maybe it's taking away too much time from the most important things we could say no because I think in Hawaii we talk a big game about family and Ohana and how important that is and absolutely it is important but sometimes it seems like money is important as as the bus goes by sometimes it seems like money is important and so the choices that we make sometimes reflect that the pursuit of money or at least the pursuit of appearing like you have money is more important than spending time with your family and so are we choosing money over family I don't know everyone's going to have to answer that for themselves but what this has meant is that we have to live on a budget I can't say yes to everything I can't buy everything we can't always take trips we can't have a new car I'm driving a 20-year-old car and there's been a few close calls but hey it's still hanging in there but this modest lifestyle means that if we ever have some kind of financial emergency it's not going to drain our savings it's going to be okay and if we got to buy something new or kids got to go hospital or just something needs to happen it's not a big deal we can afford it and what's also nice too is I don't have to pretend to have more than I have there's no facade that can be exhausting and expensive but yes we do buy nice things here and there but we always make sure to budget for it and so by working backwards to what you truly value and want in life you can make better career choices about work and where your passions lie I don't mean perfect choices because you can only control so much but you can make a lot better choices that hopefully when you're 20 or 30 years older you can look back and say oh yeah that was a really good move and so congratulations to Hawaii's class of 202 before Oh my gosh it seems like so long time ago already since I graduated from high school here but I know you're going to make us all proud so thanks for watching and hello hello hello hello hello H hello from Hawai

Channel: Hello From Hawaii

Views: 4,218

Keywords: living in hawaii, Life in hawaii, what is it like in Hawaii, Moving to hawaii, hello from hawaii, hawaii, oahu, honolulu, hawaii life, life on hawaii, hawaiian life

Id: 9F_ETRJEYFA

Length: 9min 50sec (590 seconds)

Published: Sun May 19 2024