"The Chase:

The first time life cornered me, I was 19 and hunched over a library desk, nursing a lukewarm coffee and a mounting panic attack. My screen glowed with 12 open tabs: internship applications I hadn’t submitted, scholarship deadlines I’d missed, and a half-written essay on “career readiness” that felt like a cruel joke. It hit me somewhere between my third all-nighter that week and the fifth rejection email from campus jobs: I was being hunted.

Not by failure—but by the ghost of every opportunity I’d let slip by.

The Art of Being Pursued
For years, I’d perfected the dance of avoidance. I treated life like a game of dodgeball, weaving between responsibilities and “what-ifs” with Olympic-level evasion.

When friends launched startups, I said, “I’ll join next semester.”
When professors offered research roles, I mumbled, “I’m not qualified yet.”
When a hackathon flyer landed on my dorm desk, I recycled it, whispering, “Someday.”
I told myself I was “waiting for the right moment.” In reality, I was waiting for permission—for some cosmic sign that I was ready, smart enough, worthy. Meanwhile, the chase intensified: deadlines loomed, peers outpaced me, and the gnawing sense of “not enough” grew teeth.

The breaking point came junior year. My roommate, Maya—a chronic over-sharer with a side hustle selling crocheted phone cases—landed a $10k grant to turn our dorm’s snack-sharing Google Sheet into a campus food rescue app. Meanwhile, I’d just withdrawn from a graphic design course because “the syllabus looked intense.”

That night, I stared at my reflection in the microwave door (college decor, right?) and asked: When did I become the prey?

The Flip: From Hunted to Hunter
Maya’s success wasn’t luck. It was strategy. While I’d been dodging rejection, she’d been courting it.

“I applied to 14 grants before getting that $10k,” she told me over ramen. “Got 13 ‘nos’ and one ‘maybe.’ The ‘maybe’ turned into ‘yes’ after I slept in their office lobby for three hours.”

Her secret? Relentless pursuit.

Inspired (and mildly shamed), I decided to flip the script. Instead of fleeing from expectations, I’d chase curiosity. Instead of waiting for readiness, I’d weaponize naivety. Here’s how it unfolded:

Week 1: The Awkward First Steps
Goal: Start a podcast interviewing professors about failure.
Reality: My communications professor thought I wanted to discuss his research and spent 20 minutes explaining nematode mating habits. (Note: Nematodes are worms. They’re… enthusiastic.)

Lesson: Clarity beats cleverness. I rebranded as The Messy Middle—raw chats about academic detours.

Month 2: The Humiliation Hurdle
Goal: Partner with the sustainability club on a campus composting app.
Reality: My “pitch” was a napkin sketch of a trash can with legs. The club president laughed. Then said, “Let’s try it.”

Lesson: Ideas don’t need polish—they need passion. Our janky app prototype (built on a $12 no-code platform) diverted 300 pounds of dining hall waste in two months.

Semester 3: The Breakthrough
Goal: Secure funding for a mental health mural project.
Reality: The dean’s office said, “We don’t fund art.” So I called it a “public health initiative” and partnered with psych majors to collect survey data. GI got$2k, painted the mural, and proved creativity thrives in loopholes.

Lesson: Persistence > pedigree.

The Four Rules of Pursuit
Through faceplants and small wins, I distilled a survival guide for outrunning inertia:

1. Chase Curiosity, Not Clout
My failed podcast taught that passionon fuels endurance. When I focused on topics that lit me up (not what I thought would impress LinkedIn), the work felt like play.

Example: A bio major friend obsessed with fungi started a TikTok series on campus mushroom varieties. It led to a collaboration with the botany department—and a sponsored research trip to Costa Rica.

2. Embrace “Beginner’s Boldness”
As students, we’re expected to “know nothing”—a superpower in disguise.

When I cold-emailed a local startup about shadowing their UX team, I wrote: “I’ve never designed an app, but I’ve broken every iPhone I’ve owned. Let me study your disaster recovery process.” They said yes.

3. Redefine “Resources”
You don’t need a grant to start—you need grit.

The composting app team used:

Free design software from the library
A $5 whiteboard for brainstorming
ChatGPT to draft grant proposals (shhh)
4. Let Rejection Redirect You
After my third mural proposal rejection, an advisor muttered, “Maybe try something smaller.” So I painted kindness notes on sticky pads and hid them in library books. A campus magazine featured it, which got the dean’s attention. Sometimes “no” is just “not this way.”

The Payoff: Why Chasing Beats Fleeing
By graduation, the script had flipped.

My podcast (now with decent mics) was featured in a faculty newsletter.
The composting app expanded to three nearby colleges.
I’d secured a job not through applications, but because a startup CEO heard me interview her on The Messy Middle.
But the real victory? I stopped waking up to panic. The chase no longer felt like survival—it felt like sovereignty.

Your Turn: How to Start Chasing
Name Your Prey
What’s haunting you? Missed chances? Self-doubt? Others’ expectations? Write it down—then write what you’d pursue if it weren’t there.

Launch a “Minimum Viable Pursuit”

Want to write? Publish a 100-word story on Instagram.
You dream of coding? Build a meme generator with free tutorials.
Crave change? Organize a campus “swap meet” for skills.
Recruit Fellow Hunters
My composting team was born in a dorm lounge at 2 a.m. Your peers aren’t competition—they’re collaborators. Text the person you admire but feel too intimidated to approach. (They’re likely just as scared.)

Track Small Wins
My “Wins Jar” held notes like:

“Asked a question in class without fainting.”
“Emailed the mural pitch.”
“Edited the podcast without crying.”
Progress is cumulative.

The Truth About the Chase
You’ll never feel “ready.” Not for the grant, the gig, or the leap. But here’s the secret: Readiness is a myth sold to keep us docile.

The girl who launched a food rescue app with a Google Sheet? She’s now scaling it nationwide. The guy who taught coding through TikTok? He dropped out to found an edtech startup. The boy who painted sticky notes? (Okay, that was me.) I’m writing this from a café down the street from that startup job—a job I got because I chased curiosity instead of cowering from doubt.

The world is shaped by those willing to stumble toward purpose. So lace up, lean in, and run toward the life that’s been waiting for you to give chase.

The hunt is on. What—or who—will you pursue first?