There Is No One Who Can Do What You Do

A simple way of finally getting to know how special and necessary you are in this world.

By María Josefina Martinez Calero, Universidad Católica del Uruguay; University Innovation Fellow

As a student or a professional, you surely went through a normal but difficult decision: choosing what you want to spend the rest of your life doing. Unfortunately, you were probably also pressured to do this at a young age and convinced that you could not continue discovering and choosing your path later in life. If this was your case (or you still think this is how things work) I recommend you to keep reading because the world needs you to do things that only you can do, and this doesn’t depend on the major you choose.

When I entered university, I had this feeling that my major would limit who I could be instead of complimenting me, and other students around me frequently felt the same. Thankfully, experiences I went through in college during the last three years led me to see life with new eyes and inspired me to approach my life in a different way.

I’m an ordinary electronic engineering student, and the only reason I decided to study this major is because I want to invent things and I am good at maths (sounds quite banal right?). At the same time, I feel distinguished by my Vitiligo, and I enjoy coming along with other people with the same skin condition, which determines our skin to have two different colors throughout the body. Apart from that, last year I resolved to raise a puppy to become a future guide dog. Being the first person on my campus to this was challenging as I had to deal with many permissions. Just for you to imagine what the experience looks like, I had to go every day to the university (and every other place I visited) with a puppy from when it was 4-months old until it turned into an adult (which included cleaning her poop at campus). This was a fulfilling experience which introduced me to many blind people and families with children with autism. It exposed me to an unseen reality which I wanted to contribute to.

Studying engineering, building a Vitiligo community, training a guide dog — three experiences, no connection. Or… maybe yes; they were all enjoyable activities for me and I undertook them for curiosity. That was all I needed to discover something that motivates me: a hidden passion to devote my career to medical technology for unpopular/left-out pathologies, an area which I never thought I could like. Unintentionally, while I followed my eagerness, I found a way of combining all those interests which are giving meaning to my life. What’s most interesting about this finding is the perspective from which I can contribute to society: a unique one.

The importance of learning technical skills is real, but the skills earned when we develop our passions and curiosity are unrepeatable from one person to another. This is why I believe being entrepreneurs (not the typical entrepreneurs) is the pathway that gives meaning to our lives, not our majors.

Entrepreneurship is generally associated with businesses, but there is another side to the coin. To me, being an entrepreneur means to have the initiative to carry out actions that are difficult, innovative and ambitious. Is to be curious and determined. It doesn’t mean to be fearless, it means to be adventurous. This mindset helps expose us to a combination of unique experiences that we go through in life. This transforms each of us into fundamentally unique people who serve unique roles in society, as we are the only ones capable of connecting our talents and interests with impact.

I believe the most striking lives are empowered by passion and underpinned by technical skills. The seed of passion is inside us, but we need to nurture it to discover how it looks, to make it grow and become stronger. And there is no simpler way to do it than trying new things, learning more about what we already know and getting out of our comfort zone. We must never stop discovering and transforming our souls.

It’s essential to remember to keep pushing ourselves to keep doing those things which make us curious and inspired. And last but not least, we must never forget to keep trying new things, because this can take us to some unknown but amazing road. Just do whatever intrigues you. The experiences will speak for themselves.