But a Jape

“I would be happy with any decision you make! As long as you decide to be rich.”

– not what I was told, but what I heard

Growing up, I would hear from a lot of my Asian peers: “Asian parents, huh? They probably want you to be a doctor or an engineer, right?” But my parents never really pushed me towards a specific career path, they were actually very supportive of me pursuing any career I wanted.

Except they also had a very strong belief in a certain aspect of the “American Dream” – that is, if you were good at something, people would definitely want to pay you a lot of money to do it.

They were both computer programmers, so their experiences very much lined up with this theory. As far as I know, neither have attempted to replicate this experiment with, say, being a writer. Or an artist. Or any manner of creative profession.

– James