In frustration last week, I asked twitter almost in a moment of venting, Doesn’t everyone know who they want to be when they grow up?

Oddly enough, a friend—a former roommate who spent a summer during college at CMU and now is attending graduate at University of Chicago—responded that it was still difficult and that she wish she knew.

I think I was alluding to success. To the pursuit of happiness.

But how do I know? Or at least…why do I at least…think I know?

I always talk about a time in the 7th grade when I saw a girl who seemed happy and chatting with her friends during an assembly. At that time, I decided that I wanted to be just like her. I wanted to be confident and popular. And so I could say that with that goal in mind, I spent the next 15 years trying to be her. Or that I would watch a movie and suddenly fixate on a character—I suddenly want to do that, I want to be as awesome.

I always knew what I wanted to be. A writer, a singer, a scientist?

Was there ever a period that I didn’t know what I wanted to be? Sure. While in college, I realized that I didn’t enjoy computer science. But for several years, I refused to believe it and figured that if I just got better at it, things would turn around. Fortunately, I discovered human computer interaction in time, I was able to squeeze myself into the field and ultimately got my masters in hci. Perhaps it was fortunate—because I did find something that was very close but perhaps not perfectly what i wanted to do.

What happens to everyone else who doesn’t find their niche? Do they wallow and wonder? Perhaps, because they don’t know any better? Perhaps because they have punched themselves over and over again…saying that they can’t be as good as…that they are just unlucky.

It’s what you make of it, I would say. And yet even in 5 years, I am still not sure where I want to be. All I know is that I want to be happy.