The Purpose to Wake Up Tomorrow

In this blog, I want to share how Erikson’s stages of Industry vs Inferiority and Identity vs Role Confusion played out in my own journey. Each stage gave me, in its own way, a purpose to wake up tomorrow.

Industry vs. Inferiority

As a child, I was a prodigy with a streak of overconfidence. The memory of my fourth-grade scholarship exam stays with me: finishing the paper early, sipping lemonade, and neglecting to recheck, which cost me the scholarship by just four marks. Still, I don’t think that incident humbled my overconfidence in the slightest . The insecurity I carried was more about my body than my intellect.

After the accident, this conflict returned in a new form. Industry meant re-entering the workforce, proving to myself that I could still succeed professionally despite my physical loss. I did just that. The real estate job gave me hands-on experience with lead generation, a skill I had just learned in my course. Soon, within months, I had enough clients to exceed my salary, and I resigned to establish my own business.

Still, there were moments of inferiority. Financial instability haunted me, especially since I lacked an emergency fund. To stabilize, I accepted another high-level role as a digital strategist in a real estate agency. Professionally, this was the “top floor.” There was little further to go in terms of responsibility. Yet I carried unresolved questions, which propelled me into the next stage.

Identity vs. Role Confusion

Surviving the truck crash was both miraculous and haunting. Had I not moved my head in that split second, I would not be alive. That awareness created an existential urgency. Every breath felt like borrowed time, a bonus. I could not imagine wasting it doing something meaningless, such as scheduling Facebook posts for clients.

Questions consumed me: Who am I? What am I here for? What value am I adding? My skepticism of destiny and divinity meant I did not frame survival as fate, but the pressure to justify my existence weighed heavily. I spent sleepless nights, scribbling new life missions on paper, only to discard them hours later.

At the real estate agency, the dissonance became unbearable. I knew this was not my calling, even if I did not yet know what was. Within two months, I resigned. Around the same time, I hit a period of despair, feeling as though I had experienced everything life could offer and had nothing left to look forward to.

Then I encountered a line that shifted my perspective: If you think you have gotten everything you expected out of life, it’s time to do what life expects out of you. That sentence became my anchor. Slowly, my identity crystallized. I wanted to spend my time helping people, generating jobs, and contributing to the world in tangible ways. This realization led me toward entrepreneurship and eventually psychology, as I sought to understand and uplift others.

The Purpose to Wake Up Tomorrow

These stages have truly given me a purpose to wake up tomorrow. I remember telling my boss this, just two days before my accident that I never had to fight for anything in my life, first academically and now professionally. I never had to ask anyone to me work, from one project, always came another. It is feeling too easy and I wanted something challenging and satisfying in my life. It sure feels like there was a genie somewhere, listening intently who granted me that wish. xD