I ripped open the present, throwing the crumpled wrap out of the way, I held in my hands the Lego set Santa had brought me. As my parents earnestly grinned, I began to assemble the Legos, but every time, there was that one extra or missing piece in the set.

With an immense deal of thought and 5 hours of precise building, my 8 year old self found himself proudly displaying what was supposed to be a Star Wars walker with not two legs, but as a neighborhood: housing campfires, full houses inside, and even Christmas trees!

After this joyous cycle continued for many years, I soon began to bring it to Youtube, learning stop animation, video editing, and social media marketing all during 5th grade— bringing to life what I’d seen in my vision of creativity when I was younger.

Now, why am I telling this story? A little hint: I’m not trying to express my belief of Santa.

The answer is that I am telling this story to illustrate my past, paralleling it with today. Today, my Lego set is my pursuit in the moment, that could be an app, a startup, or a research paper. My neighborhood is my mindset to solve a myriad of problems within each. On top of these parallels, I then bring how I took my ideas to life with stop animation and Youtube, this is, today, my ambitious view of where even the most seemingly useless skills can be taken above and beyond.

This is where my skills of learning languages, mastering 3D modelling, or discovering photo editing began to manifest alongside my ambitious pursuits of more for my community.

And today is where you find me, in the midst of so much giving up and defeat in this world, it wouldn’t hurt if I just put a little of it back together with a little ambition and excitement.