Growing Pains

What they don’t tell you about puberty is that even after the zits resolve, the issues don’t. The elle team deep dives into our struggles with body image, identity and ambition, as we confront the fact that adulthood doesn’t magically give you all the answers

- Andrea Sim, Gregory Woo & Hanan Haddad

GREGORY WOO

SOCIAL MEDIA AND SPECIAL PROJECTS SPECIALIST

On dreams and ambition

One morning, a week into the circuit breaker that Singapore is just coming out of, I jolted awake and realised I had no idea where I was — or rather I didn’t recognise the place I found myself in. It was akin to the moment in a relationship when you realise you need to get out. The moment you see so clearly that the only thing that lies ahead is a very uncomfortable break-up. For me, this break-up is between myself and my first love: my career. I had clung to it desperately, like a life raft, the belief that your “calling in life” is meant to be in times of crisis. And I was disillusioned.

Follow your heart, find your passion and chase your dreams. For as long as I can remember, I was told that following any one of these three-word clichés printed on class T-shirts or boomed over a commencement address in school meant that I couldn’t fail. The fantasy I was sold was that while I might not be the richest person in the world — or even in my neighbourhood — my passion would magically buoy me to the surface and at the very least, I would be happy. And for some of the time, it was certainly true.