3/23/14: Where Do I Go?

[Note: I wrote two posts over the course of spring break. The other has been posted prior to this one]

My friend and I are in very different settings right now. I go to NYU and she's going to community college. I'm pursuing a degree in Film and Television, she's pursuing a degree in Communications. Yet we're both feeling...uncertain, I suppose is the word.

There are so many career options laid out in front of us. She wants to be a teacher, but she's not sure. I'm looking into screenwriting, but I'm not sure. "Too many options" is the phrase. So many different courses to take in life, and how do we know if the one we're taking is wrong, or won't pan out?

We're both looking for something, some magical answer that will tell us exactly what we should do. This will make us happy. This will make us secure. This will be the best outcome for us.

But we're not going to find it.

That's the nature of the beast, I suppose. Uncertainty abounds. There are too many variables, too many possible ways things could go. Hell, a meteorite could come down and crush me tomorrow, and after that these career contemplations won't matter much. 

The future's one big blob of "OH SHIT WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN NEXT", and I'm moving towards it at a snail's pace. Everything feels like an in-transit, between where I am and where I want to be. Maybe that's where it will always be. I'll never get to where I want to go, I'll always be going. From one point to another. 

Part of me thinks I can just wait for it to come. That I don't need to change myself too much, and the changes I want will be made for me. Perhaps that's what it's like as young adults. We're standing in front of the future, and we want the future to make the first move.

But who says the move it makes will be the one we want?

There's no cure-all, whatever happens. Whatever I choose, it won't solve my problems. It won't put me in some utopic situation where I'm feeling like I'm exactly where I want to be. I'd probably be concerned for my mental health if that were the case! Any choice I take will have its share of problems, mistakes, paths rather taken. And the internal struggles I deal with now won't go away on their own

Maybe the solution isn't in what path I take. Maybe it's in how I approach the path I take. So often I've looked to external solutions to my problems, and every time I've come up short. The high school transition, the college transition, future career transitions. With each one I've looked for things to change radically, and they never have. They've changed in small, incremental ways, but never as fast as I want them to. And not always in the way I want.

Maybe I should work on changing myself first. 

Maybe I should learn to accept the uncertainties of whatever path I take. Embrace that I don't know what will happen. Acknowledge that there'll be bad parts, but there will be good parts as well. My future will have its share of joys, discoveries, new parts of myself I'll be surprised to find out I have. And someday I'll get to those points, but there's also things I can do now. Little things, but they can all stack up. I can learn to make myself better, happier, more fulfilled, more ready for the future.

Earlier, I described the future as "OH SHIT WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN NEXT". My friend had a different way of looking at it. For her, it's all one big blog of "I COULD DO ANYTHING." Maybe that can be the same for me. Maybe I really could do anything. Maybe I could be a screenwriter, or a psychologist.

Maybe I could be a person happy with his life, no matter what happens.