Whether they are successful or not, I believe most people keep reminding others that working hard and having a better educational background would be sufficient for future life still. No matter what people’s positions are in society, like entrepreneurs, I do not doubt that working hard is essential for everyone who wants to achieve something. However, the biggest challenge I face so far is continuing to pursue my education career while I do not perceive my future path.

Even though almost all the theoretical knowledge that was concluded by former persons has been proven, from my perspective, I would instead regard that field experiment is way more crucial for the meaning of life in the world. If I am only concerned about relying on textbook knowledge, I will fail to correlate filed study with readings. For example, I enjoy watching cuisine channels from time to time. That provides me with the basic knowledge of handling knives, such as sharpening a knife, hand gestures to avoid cutting myself and so on. All these visual learning can enrich your abstract ideas and somehow subconsciously elevate your self-protection sense. However, none of those things would be genuinely formed into muscle reflex to be part of yourself. Because you don’t accidentally cut yourself once, you don’t learn the lesson. There is a saying that you can never be too careful. Without reality involvement, analytical information could only stay as theories, not an actual workable principle.

There is something that I have learnt from INTS210, which is a course provided by Capilano University. It about a coyote, the trickster. He or she is greedy for different eyes from a rabbit and a buffalo in his or her case. From my interpretation, those eyes give a tunnel vision and a broad view, respectively. Combining these two visions will provide us with more thoughtful views with different disciplines on certain things. As a matter of fact, not only do I need to be equipped with cross-field expertise, but also to everyone else. Because, from my point of view, you cannot be an expert in one field without cross-referencing other subjects’ understanding.

When it comes to future studies, I am clueless so far. I do not think what I have learnt up to this point, such as business administration, marketing, human resources management, economics, will be useful in my future life. However, I can assure you that I want to possess those backgrounds because some circumstances or situations can apply those disciplines at some point in the future.

All in all, I might have my ideas toward my education career, but I don’t have the faith that I can walk out of the maze, which is about a clear path to success. Also, I doubt that I can be successful because, until this point, I confuse about where my future is.

Lived a 22-year-old life in this world, I have experienced many situations that can be qualified as life-changing. Every brand-new day is another new life, but the past influences it. Whether it has good or bad effectiveness in my life, it still counts as part of life experiences. When it comes to the topic of who I really am, as a matter of fact, I couldn’t tell. Even though I come from a country of more than 5000 years old country, China, that it has lots of previous examples that I can look up to identify where my destination is. It is still impossible for me to pinpoint my position in society. I need to be there personally to feel it, do it, and be part of the process so that I can fully understand what that is. The following aspects will be considerations of self-reflection on identity, consciousness, education, and worldview.

Regarding identity, it is frustrated that a person does not have his or her identity and belonging. In the past four years of living in Canada, I could not find my place here; in the meantime, I have lost a part of “me” that is coming from my hometown. I am standing in between the thin line, the eastern and the western. Where am I supposed to be? According to Lori Snyder, she said that her words are not accountable that we need to go find out ourselves. Indeed, her personal experience cannot answer. However, her philosophy could be useful as guidelines to sense my inner self, connect with nature, and get closed to my position here.

Concerning consciousness, there are various temptations around me and resistances inside my head. The “devil” part is winning the “war of life.” It turns out that my mind explicitly understands that leaning too much portion of life into leisure will cause unpredictable outcomes; however, my body and my daily activities unconsciously illustrate the opposite way of my mind. During the wasting-time activities on losing into social media and mobile games, such as Tik Tok, Instagram, Honor of Kings, and so on, seeking an escape to go after more than just leisure is my priority. My solutions to get away from the comfort zone are cooking for myself, making a cocktail, working out, and going to the supermarket. There are still lots of other ways to pull me out. Reading textbooks to prepare for the current classes could do the trick as well.

Speaking of the education that I am having now, I am a freshman, totally new to the university. I start my university life without any indication that I only experience the university remotely online. It is a feeling of losing connection with others. I am more like a person, who likes to be present, of observing others with cautions and thoughts, not in the evil ways, without speaking too much, but I do stand up for myself if I feel like I want to say something. There are reasons that I can think of why I have such behavior. One of those reasons is that I would like to find out the differences between me and the other.

As regards worldview, I have not comprehensively developed, but I am still working on it. I am fortunate that I have met some friends who are willing to listen to me and advise me. There was one time that I didn’t handle a thing appropriately at first. With my friends’ ideas and solutions, I had dealt with it properly. People always say that you don’t have a second chance. When I sit down calmly, thinking about it, there are many things alike in the past. In fact, there is always a second chance. It just comes to you in a different form, but the actual meaning of those things is the same. Everything is like a machine that runs in its way. The mechanism behind it is the same and needed to find out by myself.

In the Chinese traditional naming principles, a name will possess expectations from your family.  My name is Jianfeng Chen, from China. My parents have my name with blessings upon me that wishing me a healthy life and prosperity.

Thinking about my past, I have spent twenty-one years in education, starting from preschool. With this much learning life, I still do not figure out what I want and whom I want to be, but one of the life philosophies that I know it deep in my mind is that what I have done in the past will influence my present and determine my future. Every decision that I have previously made impacts my life. The most important decision that I have ever made would be choosing to come to Canada for learning in seven years ago.

It is a life-changing decision for me. If I don’t make up my mind on coming to Canada, I believe that I would be a person who is counting on my family for fixing everything for me, and I won’t have the capabilities to deal with my daily chores and other businesses. I also foster a new habit that I did not have before, working out at the gym or home because the workout atmosphere here is outweighed, compared with my city.

Besides the new habit, I have met a friend who comes to the role of exploring my worldview. I am not mature back then, and I still am now. When it comes to the new me, there are some changes inside my mind that I start to consider more perspectives for expressing my opinions on a thing, not just following what I think it to be as before. Moreover, it will never be enough if I only receive information from my friends. If I want to broaden my views on a particular item, I need to be more comprehensive about other aspects of knowledge. And this is why I choose interdisciplinary studies as my major to start with my university life.

In short, I am still who I am, but a better one. Talking about the past is history, and tomorrow is mysterious. What is matters is the moment of what you decide to be. I am still looking up a better version of myself, attempting to put the right jigsaw puzzle into its place.