Balancing Bipolar: Musing on My “Why”

I thought about writing this one as poetry, but a formulaic rhyme scheme felt too restrictive for the topic at hand. Instead, I’m going to keep this conversational.

I have bipolar.

Some of you already knew that, but I figured now was as good a time as any to make it public for those who didn’t know. Anyway, I am writing today after a recent battle with some symptoms of this invisible disability, thus the share for context. I found myself unable to work for a couple of days, and, while I have since recovered with the help of a well-timed holiday break, I found that my downtime brought with it some valuable introspection. I spent hours fixated on a simple yet dumbfounding question:

Why?

More specifically, I reflected on why I do what I do as a professional, namely why I continue to aspire toward more challenging and stressful career directions despite my illness. While I know nobody asked for my perspective, I find it somewhat cathartic to articulate my “why” now having reflected—and perhaps my reflection can facilitate your own identification of your “why”. To the point, I can now summarize my “why” in three facets: Impact, Prestige, and Experience.

Impact
Above all else in my career, I suppose I want to matter. That’s why I do what I do. I want to make a difference, drive positive change, solve meaningful problems, and leave some legacy behind in the lives of those I’ve interacted with. I take some pride in my accomplishments so far, but I am always itching for more. It gives me great pleasure to know that I am overcoming odds as it pertains to my chronic illness, for example, and I aspire to inspire and motivate those that meet me to show that they too can overcome obstacles.

Prestige
In tandem with my aspirations of tangible impact, I can’t shake the fact that part of why I do what I do is driven by perception. I don’t claim to be some paragon of utility in my choices and actions. While I want to do things that genuinely make a measurable difference, I also sincerely care about the fact that I am perceived as making a difference, perceived as doing things that are difficult, perceived as being “good” at what I do, etc. Perhaps you are more noble than I am, but my reality is that I was born competitive, and I’ll likely die competitive. I want to be respected, regarded as successful, and achieve things that the world at large sees as difficult to achieve.

Experience
Tertiary in my trio of “whys” is my insistence on pushing myself experientially. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a thrill seeker or an adrenaline junkie, neither aspiring to swim with sharks nor skydive any time soon. Instead, I insist on challenging myself in my career. I enjoy meeting new colleagues, exploring novel technologies and processes, witnessing unfamiliar facilities, and pushing myself outside my comfort zone to learn all I can along the way. Furthermore, the income from my career development affords me the opportunity to seek modest novelty outside the workplace—traveling, hiking, exploring new cuisines, and the like—privileges that I did not have growing up and ones that I do not take for granted now.

In short, I have a lot of reasons to continue doing all that I do, aspiring to do more, and endeavoring to achieve all that I can in this life. I am sure you do too. Here’s hoping you and I can both keep our “whys” front of mind in the face of whatever challenges lay ahead of us as we continue to strive forward toward our goals in 2025.

Kanan
2024-12-29