If you’ve read Mastery by Robert Greene, then the following story is familiar; if not - here is a story of Yoky Matsuoka.

As a teenager in Japan in the early 80s, she had all kinds of interests, especially in math and science. Her parents wanted her to do swimming and piano, but she began to like tennis instead.

So she was solving math problems on a train while coming from rigorous tennis practice. In fact, she took it so seriously that she was about to become a professional tennis player - until an injury made that impossible.

She then moved to the US and tried different subjects, but nothing seemed to be her “thing.” However, she decided to give a try in the field of robotics at MIT. This changed not only the course of her life but the lives of many people.

As she was fascinated by the human hand, she began to focus solely on the robotic hand. Everything started to click together - her love for math, science, physiology, but also the hand movement (tennis) as well as her passion for building things. She had found her niche, and with that, she completely revolutionized the field of neuroscience and robotics.

The moral of the story is this:

We often don’t know what our life’s task is, but if we simply keep following our interests, we could find it. Sometimes certain things click with us; sometimes they don’t. There’s no reason to stick with anything that doesn’t serve us anymore - but might serve later in ways we can not foresee at the time.

KRISTJAN