You did what your parents did.
Therefore, it is hard to do what we love because we unconsciously want to fulfill these societal expectations. In her TEDx talk, “The Psychology of Career Decision,” Sharon Belden highlights that “throughout much of human history, people didn’t choose a line of work. You did what your parents did. What you did for a living was prescribed from where you were from, your gender, and your social class.” This is what I experienced in my own life and see again and again in my friends’ families. We are usually pushed to follow the path of our parents. When our parents try to guide us, they typically tell us what they’ve done or were told to do, without necessarily trying to understand what drives us to what we are passionate about.
Belden Castonguay, Sharon. “The Psychology of Career Decisions.” Filmed April 7, 2018 at TEDxWesleyanU, Middletown, CT. Video, 12:26.
Video