Click & Listen :)
I'm at a real weird place in my life.
Through high school, I knew I was going to college. I didn't know where until the second I decided, but I knew I'd be dorming in the fall of 2010. My first two years of college I floated between majors, constantly telling myself I had time to make up my mind about where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. There was no pressure to make a decision, so I just spent the time dabbling in different subjects and knocking out gen eds because hey, I had more than half my college career ahead of me.
And then I didn't. Seemingly all at once, I went from being a freshman taking in everything about the college atmosphere to being a burned out upperclassman panicking about the future at every turn. Suddenly every hour I spend enjoying the company of my friends here is an hour I'm wasting, an hour I should spend figuring out where the hell I'm going. I spent this past weekend foregoing things I would've liked to have done in favor of staring at my computer trying to make sense of all the options in front of me, and I managed to determine that beauty school and the WNBA probably aren't realistic destinations for me. Beyond the internet, the only advice I can seem to get from advisers and people of the sort is to take my time and wait until I stumble on a class or a subject that really interests me and ride that out. They always advocate patience, but my extra years of tuition would help to pay their salaries so it's no wonder they see no problem with me hanging around. I've come to the conclusion that it's time to just take a stab at getting it right on my own, and if the world kicks me in the nuts when I get out there then so be it.
The song I linked above is one of the more beautiful songs I've heard recently, although I may be biased since I'm a total MB20 fanboy. I listened to it for the first time yesterday and was struck by how beautifully the lyrics articulate exactly how I'm feeling. I've been sleeping at the wheel for as long as I can remember; all of my years of schooling I've done nothing but what I'm told academically, and even my extracurriculars were more a result of my desire to spend time with the people in them than my own interest in them. Certainly the song applies to my romantic life as well, but I won't put any of you to sleep with that here; the point is that autopilot just seems to be my nature. But no more.
Come on, come on, I can be saved. I'm done letting people tell me how to act, how to feel, how to live the rest of my life. It's time I take it by the horns and save myself, so that whether I lead a life I love or one I have to tweak to make it suit me, I can never kick myself for letting someone else hold the credit for what I come to accomplish. My hands are full but my life is not, and it's time that changes. I won't spend the rest of my time busying myself all the ways other people say I should with no idea what I'm fighting for; every day is a fresh start, and tomorrow's new beginning for me is going to be a new commitment to self fulfillment and hopefully a forgotten concern regarding what other people want for me.
As always, thanks for reading, and please comment with thoughts on the matter if you have any! I'm sure I'm not the only one having a mid-college crisis in these parts.
-Kevin
I spent a good part of this past summer panicking about what I'm doing with my life, because my life plan just wasn't going to work out, and I had no plan b. Lucky for me, I did just what people told you, and stumbled upon something (although purely by accident) that I really thought I'd enjoy. Despite the random positivity I felt about it, I was thinking I wouldn't do it, just because of the hassle of transferring , especially because it'd take an extra year of school at this point. But honestly, you've inspired me to grow a pair and go for it, cause this is the rest of my life we're talking about here. So really, thank you for that. And good luck - quarter-life crises can't last forever:)
ReplyDeleteDon't worry about life crises - I had them every other week for like 3 years in college. Truth is, you won't know if you're "meant to be" in a certain place in your life until you get there. So the best thing to do is keep your options open (if you're thinking about grad school but not sure, take the GRE anyway, apply to schools and post-graduation things even if you're not sure), and then just start trying things until you get the feeling that it's right. Also Katie, I'm proud of you for that! :-)
ReplyDelete