【推荐2】If you’re in your 20s or even 30s, you might feel a lot of uncertainty all the time. You may be not sure what your life purpose is.    1    This is normal.

We all want to have a certain life purpose. We all want to feel we’re on the right path. We all want to perfect our habits, our routines, or our productivity. We all want to feel more certain, and perfect in what we’re doing.

There is a struggle between the comfort of certainty and perfection and the fear of uncertainty and being suboptimal(不最理想的).

Let me let you in on a secret: no one is free from this struggle. Look at the most successful people you can think of —Bill Gates, Obama, Taylor Swift.     2    Do you think they have certainty and a feeling of reaching perfection? Not a chance. There is not one of us alive, not me or anyone else, who ever feels certainty about their purpose or path. If they do, they’re fooling themselves.     3    

No one ever feels they’ve found the perfect productivity routine, the perfect version of themselves.     4    

We all feel uncertainty, all day, and we all struggle with it. Some people have grown more comfortable with it than others, but in general no one likes uncertainty.

    5    That’s perfectly OK, perfectly normal. Don’t run from it. Instead, stay with this uncomfortable, unappealing uncertainty. It’s here in you, a part of this moment, a part of you but not the whole of you.

【推荐3】A few weeks ago, I called an Uber to take me to the Boston airport for a flight home for the holidays. As I slid into the back seat of the car, the warm intonations（语调）of the driver’s accent washed over me in a familiar way.

I learned that he was a recent West African immigrant with a few young children, working hard to provide for his family. I could relate: I am the daughter of two Ethiopian immigrants who made their share of sacrifices to ensure my success. I told him I was on a college break and headed home to visit my parents. That’s how he found out I go to Harvard. An approving eye glinted（闪烁）at me in the rearview window, and quickly, we crossed the boundaries of rider and driver. I became his daughter, all grown up – the product of his sacrifice.

And then came the fateful question: “What do you study?” I answered “history and literature” and the pride in his voice faded, as I knew it might. I didn’t even get to add “and African-American studies” before he cut in, his voice thick with disappointment. “All that work to get into Harvard, and you study history?”

Here I was, his daughter, squandering the biggest opportunity of her life. He went on to deliver the age-old lecture that all immigrant kids know. We are to become doctors (or lawyers, if our parents are being generous) – to make money and send money back home. The unspoken demand, made across generations, which my Uber driver laid out plainly, is simple: Fulfill your role in the narrative（故事）of upward mobility so your children can do the same.

I used to feel anxious and backed into a corner by the questioning, but now as a junior in college, I’m grateful for their support more than anything. This holiday season, I’ve promised myself I won’t get annoyed at their inquiries. I won’t defensively respond with “but I plan to go to law school!” when I get unrequested advice. I’ll just smile and nod, and enjoy the warmth of the occasion.