"What is water?" - hidden assumptions that shape our life

Two young fish are swimming along, when they come across an older fish swimming the other way. He nods at them, saying, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?”
The two young fish swim on; eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”

David Foster Wallace narrated this parable to illustrate that "the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about."

I have been reflecting on this a lot for the past few weeks. Particularly, I've been thinking about how various cultural and social assumptions have shaped my life and the decisions that I have made. And like water for the fish, these everpresent realities are the hardest to see.

When I had began college, I chose engineering. Because I wanted to chose something "smart", instead of something like journalism, writing or literature which I loved much more. I also wanted a stable job, with sufficient social status.

The hidden assumptions are working here at multiple levels. While growing up, I was praised for being intelligent, and for having good grades. Thus the assumption became that intelligence was a premier value.
At a societal level, we've decided that a person should be judged by how much they earn, and not by how fulfilled/happy they are. Money earned (both amount as well as stability) becomes a major benchmark for success.

Assumptions like these guide every decision we make. They're hyper real and yet invisible.

My point isn't that these assumptions are bad. Fish need the water to survive. We need value structures to guide our life. At the same time, we must examine the problematic assumptions that make us miserable unnecessarily. How feasible will this be? I don't know. Hopefully, I'll soon find greater clarity on this.