Now let’s start the post.

I’ll begin by reintroducing myself.

My name is Drew Jackson.

Throughout my life, many people have told me that I am a “fascinating” person.

I’ve always wondered what that meant.

Maybe it was a polite way of saying that I’m “a lot”.

Maybe it referred to my wild inner lore.

Maybe it’s the easiest way to describe the organized chaos that is my life.

I couldn’t tell you.

But, I think the sentiment encapsulates my life quite well.

I grew up in a tight family. I have two parents and two brothers. We didn’t move around a lot growing up, so I had the opportunity to grow deep roots in each place we lived.

These roots helped build the foundation for the person I am today. I was able to meet valuable friends, mentors, and exemplars along the way.

Growing up, I was pushed to learn how to succeed for myself. I was taught to be curious and use my brain for powerful means from a young age. I flourished in school. I was good at almost every subject.

Yet, not everything was sunshine and rainbows.

I would say I grew up in a bubble. I was not directly exposed to the hardships of life. I knew of people who struggled, but they didn’t have an incredibly close impact on my life.

It took leaving the nest to attend college to start questioning even the very basics of my life. The lack of direct supervision combined with exposure to a variety of new people let me explore what life could have been like.

For instance: What would my life have been like if I lived across the country? What would my life have been like if I was a part of a different religion growing up? What would my life have been like if I had a different value structure growing up?

Those are difficult questions to answer.

It’s hard to know who you could have been in a different circumstance.

However your past may have been, you are the master of the circumstances you choose for your future. Because of this, I’ve experimented many times with different personal philosophies, different friend groups, different physical locations, and different career paths, all in search of the answer to one question:

Who am I?

Now, that’s an even more daunting question. Philosophers, spiritualists, scientists, and many more have been experimenting with ways to answer this question for years.

Like them, I don’t think I’ve found an answer yet.

But, that hasn’t been from a lack of trying.

I’ve tried to be a student.

I’ve tried to be a son.

I’ve tried to be a friend.

I’ve tried to be an example.

I’ve tried to be a mentor.

And I would say that I’ve succeeded and failed at all of those.

I’ve been trying for 21 years.

That’s a long time.

Yet it’s flown by in a blink of an eye.

To think I was just recently a child. A teenager. Wild.

It’s been a journey. But, enough of my life story.

Ultimately, everything in my life has led me to this moment. Right here. Speaking through this screen to you.

Yet, even through all of my life experiences, I still can’t fully articulate the important question today:

Why do I do this?

Originally, I posed this question to myself to hopefully elicit a surface-level explanation of why I have run this blog for the last 6 months.

But, by now you can see that this post is anything but that. We started deep and haven’t stopped going deeper. **Feel free to take a break if you need.**

Yet, I think this question is crucial to my life, so I’m going to try to explore it and see what pops out.

Economics

In economics, we’re taught to study why people make the decisions they do. Underlying this analysis is the thought that people are rational and therefore their decisions can be extrapolated and understood. That couldn’t be further from the truth of real life, but this is an aside.

From an economics point of view (with the assumption I’m extremely rational), I do what I do because it provides me the most benefit for the cost. By this framework, I do what I do because it brings me the most value for the amount of effort and resources I’ve had to put in. It’s a ratio of value to cost for every decision.

Taking a second to think about that, I think that’s not incredibly far off.

For instance, I went to the University of Utah because it cost the least amount for the perceived value it would provide to my future. It allowed me to get out of my comfort zone, have a place to make new friends, a place to grow and develop, yet still be close enough to my family so I could go home for the weekend.

But, I don’t think this is a truly complete answer.

I’ve spent considerable time, energy, money, resources, connections, and more on failed experiences. I’ve found many things that have not worked for me. I’ve gained value through things I learned in these experiences, but many times the value was not worth the cost.

So, there must be more necessary to answer this question.

Culture

Culture, containing segments like social norms and such, defines why we do a lot of what we do.

For instance, I come from a well-off white family in Utah. As a male, local cultural norms (although they are starting to change) state that I should be the “provider” for my future family.

A couple of large assumptions are baked into that statement. Firstly, there is the implicit expectation that I will have a family, and secondly, I will need to be the person providing for them.

As a high schooler, I didn’t know exactly how I was going to provide for my future family (and I still don’t), but I could see how people who already were providing for their families did it.

A commonality among many “good” providers was a college education. So, along cultural norms, I chose to go to college. Especially following Utah cultural norms, I chose to go to a college in-state.

So, according to this stance, why do I do the things I do? I do them because that’s what everyone does (or what the majority of people do). I do things to follow the path of the river as that’s the easiest way to get downstream without disrupting the status quo.

But, I’m not satisfied with this answer either.

I don’t feel like rationalizing my choices simply because other people do them or because they are the norm is a good answer. Throughout my life, many times I’ve chosen to take alternative routes to accomplish something.

For instance, in my freshman year of college as an economics student, I took an unpaid role working for a nonprofit organization doing marketing. I didn’t know anything about nonprofits or marketing.

I violated cultural norms (which in this case would be the norms of my major) in getting this role, yet, in hindsight, I’m extremely happy I did.

So, there’s more than culture to dictate why I do what I do.

School

For better or worse, most of school growing up is telling you what to do. It’s only when you get to the highest levels do you start to understand and tease out why you are doing what you’re doing.

Until that point, school is built to indoctrinate you with information. Why do we do addition the way we do? That’s not important, just add 1+1 and don’t ask questions.

School was counterproductive for me growing up as I didn’t have the critical thinking skills to question whether or not what I was learning was important or not. I wasn’t competent enough to ask the hard question of what I was doing what I was doing.

So, now that I’ve had a little more time to think about it, from a school perspective, why do I do what I do?

The first and easy answer is that I do what I do because I was taught that way. Feigning ignorance, I simply do a lot of what I do because I don’t know better. It relates back to the concept that I don’t know what I don’t know.

Secondly, I do what I do because I’m good at it. School is pretty decent at exposing you to a variety of different topics. Hopefully, like me, you were able to understand whether or not you were good at something and then pursued that and largely discarded the rest.

Building upon this, I do what I do because it’s easy for me. I learned in school that I had a natural aptitude for some things and didn’t for other things.

But, I don’t totally subscribe to these reasons. Just because I learned it that way, I’m good at it, and it comes easy for me doesn’t seem like a solid rationale for why I do what I do.

I’ve often done things that were hard purely for that purpose. For instance, I took a semester off of college to go with 12 strangers to Africa for 3 months. That experience included some of the most difficult experiences I’ve ever had. But, it was for those experiences that I went. Nothing about that experience was because it was easy, I was good at it, or I had learned how to do it.

So, there’s more than school to determine why I do what I do.

Religion

I grew up in a religion that was extremely focused on the what and not the why. Why? As a religion, it’s much easier to teach the what than the why. Yet, the why is infinitely better to know and understand for longevity purposes.

And I struggled to understand the why.

So, from a religious viewpoint, why do I do what I do?

Growing up I did what I did out of fear, in the hope of reward, and by the pressure of others also trying to do what I was doing. To put it another way, I did what I did not of my own accord, but because someone else told me I should/had to.

But this doesn’t jive with me either.

I know many times that I did something because I wanted to, without external pressures.

For instance, no one told me to start this blog. Yet here we are.

So, I don’t feel like external religious pressures explain everything about why I do what I do.

Parents

Most parents only want the best for their kids. I know many parents (my parents included) whose goal is to try to make their kid's life better than their own.

How does this work in practicality?

Since this article is about me, I’ll use my parents as an example.

My parents taught me how to work from a young age. I was given the responsibility to mow the lawn every week from a young age and continued the practice until I graduated high school.

Why did I do this? As an adult, I can see in retrospect that I did this to learn the value of responsibility, hard work, and constancy from a young age. Yet as a child, I didn’t totally have a choice of whether I did this or not, so I did this because it was required.

My parents taught me how to build good habits from a young age. I learned piano up until I was a sophomore in high school (when I decided to quit to my mother’s indignation). I started with a teacher, but eventually my mother took over, providing a lesson every week. I practiced every day for anywhere from 20-40 minutes.

Why did I do this? As an adult, I can see the value of building a positive habit, learning an art, and exploring my creative side. Yet, as a child, I didn’t totally have a choice of whether I did this or not, so I did this because it was required.

Overall, why did I do most things growing up?

Mainly because my parents wanted me to–or expected me to. My parents wanted me to play soccer (however I eventually wanted to play for myself), my parents wanted me to go to college, my parents wanted me to get a job, etc.

But, I’m not totally satisfied with this answer either.

I’ve done many things now, and even growing up, that were my decisions and probably would have gone against my parent’s best wishes.

For instance, right now as I’m writing this, I’m staying up aggressively past my bedtime simply because I can.

So, I don’t think my parent’s teachings and guidance totally explain why I do what I do either.

Relationships

Relationships are complex informal social contracts between people (in this context I’m referring to relationships that can be romantic, friendships, work relationships, etc.). They sometimes make people do things they may have never done by themselves. Some people become different people in different relationships.

So, from a relationship point of view, why do I do what I do?

I truly value close relationships. So, I’ll make great personal sacrifices sometimes purely to gain or preserve valuable close relationships.

For other relationships, however, I tend to be a person who extracts value from that relationship until I don’t need it anymore and then I end the relationship. This may include networking with a potential employer or becoming good friends with someone during a school class then never talking to them once the class is over (**Quick note, I’m working on it don’t worry).

So, when it comes to relationships, I do what I do because I feel like I will be alone without it or because I feel that I can gain value from our relationship.

But, I don’t think this tells the full story of why I do what I do.

I’ve started figuring out that people are valuable even if they aren’t close to you and you aren’t extracting value from the relationship.

For instance, I’ve made many relationships in my current role on the Business Student Government that aren’t extremely close but also don’t provide immediate extractable value, and they’ve still been rewarding.

So, relationships don’t fully dictate why I do what I do.

Career

As I get older, it seems as though my career is dictating more and more of what I’m doing and why. For instance, I’ve taken many internships because they align with my career. They provide opportunities to learn and grow in ways that I haven’t yet.

So, why do I do what I do?

Regarding a career stance, I do what I do because it furthers my career. The things I am doing are helping me build the foundations for a successful career

But not everything I’m doing is for my career.

For instance, this blog isn’t for my career. I work in the world of investing and have purposely left out any direct work-related topics from being blog posts. In addition, I don’t talk about my blog at work or in interviews as it’s mainly a personal project to understand more about the world and be able to give some of that knowledge back to people like you.

So, my career doesn’t always dictate why I do what I do.

Conclusion

This article started out with a version of my personal mantra: “Own your story”.

I think this is a great phrase. It’s taken me a while in my life to fully own my story, but I can confidently say it’s been the best thing I’ve ever done.

Regarding my story, we should probably articulate an answer to our original question:

Why do I do this?

• Because it provides me the most benefit for the cost
• To follow cultural norms
• I learned it that way, I’m good at it, and it comes easy for me
• Because of external pressure
• Because I can extract value or I can’t properly function without it
• For the betterment of my career

In reality, every decision I make is probably a combination of the above.

Maybe I’ll just put it this way:

I do what I do because I think that’s what I should do, nothing more, nothing less.

Anywho, that’s all for today.

-Drew Jackson