I should just make that thumbs up motivational thing my blog header... I really feel as if I need the self-encouragement!
Quite a few of my friends are going into their senior/junior year of college this year, or have already graduated (those would be the friends that are older than I am, but still!) and I've been feeling increasingly like an aimless freeloader with no real plans for life!
Which is mostly true.
And it's killing me!
I've been trying to figure out what I want to do, and there are SO MANY OPTIONS it is legitimately terrifying. I'm like a deer in the headlights, with the headlights metaphorically being the huge amount of advice that I've been receiving. It's been great advice! If I had written all of that advice down, I probably could have made a really great book or pamphlet or something that would have been extremely helpful to other people in similar situations! Wow I'm pretty dumb for not doing that.
The thing is, though, a lot of this advice has been conflicting.
"You'd be a great teacher!"
"The teacher's environment outside of the classroom can be caustic. Have you thought about counseling or social work?"
"Pffft, don't be a school counselor! Let me tell you what I think of MY school's counselor! [unkind things]"
"Look at this! You have incredible talent! Have you thought about going into art?"
"Don't go into the art field, you won't find any jobs!"
"People who say that there are no jobs in the art field don't know what they're talking about! You just have to know where to look."
"If you're going into art, pair it with something marketable, like something relating to technology! If you can code and have art skills, you're golden."
"Go into the medical field! You can do whatever you want as a hobby, and be well paid in the mean time!"
"Medical students have incredible amounts of debt, work odd hours, and have to pay ridiculous insurance just to cover their butts. Maybe you should rethink that."
"How about business?"
It just goes ON and ON, my head is spinning and I have even less of a clue than I did before!
This is just getting ridiculous.
Most of my friends seem to know what they want to do and where they're going in life, and here I am on the sidelines kicking my heels around the country. One of my friends mentioned a long time ago that I travel to escape my problems, and at the time I thought that he was totally out of line in saying that but now I think that he may have a point and I'm beginning to doubt everything!
So.
What's the solution here?
The only thing that comes to mind is "JUST KEEP SWIMMING."
All I can think to do is just work through all of this. I've signed up for part-time classes at my community college this coming winter, I'm going to find a job, I'm going to move out of my parents' house, I'm going to just slowly figure things out from there. Baby steps.
In 2010 I ended the year knowing for a fact that I wanted to be a teacher- things have changed so drastically since then! I've learned so much. I'm continuing to learn! Hopefully, the learning never stops, and ideally I'll figure out what I want to do with my life and where on earth I want to do it.
Until then...
I'm just gonna...
sit in the sun for a bit.
Yeah, that sounds nice.
[[later- it was nice for about five minutes and then I realized that it was much too hot and muggy and I have relocated back to my spot in a nice air-conditioned patch of sunlight.]]
Quite a few of my friends are going into their senior/junior year of college this year, or have already graduated (those would be the friends that are older than I am, but still!) and I've been feeling increasingly like an aimless freeloader with no real plans for life!
Which is mostly true.
And it's killing me!
I've been trying to figure out what I want to do, and there are SO MANY OPTIONS it is legitimately terrifying. I'm like a deer in the headlights, with the headlights metaphorically being the huge amount of advice that I've been receiving. It's been great advice! If I had written all of that advice down, I probably could have made a really great book or pamphlet or something that would have been extremely helpful to other people in similar situations! Wow I'm pretty dumb for not doing that.
The thing is, though, a lot of this advice has been conflicting.
"You'd be a great teacher!"
"The teacher's environment outside of the classroom can be caustic. Have you thought about counseling or social work?"
"Pffft, don't be a school counselor! Let me tell you what I think of MY school's counselor! [unkind things]"
"Look at this! You have incredible talent! Have you thought about going into art?"
"Don't go into the art field, you won't find any jobs!"
"People who say that there are no jobs in the art field don't know what they're talking about! You just have to know where to look."
"If you're going into art, pair it with something marketable, like something relating to technology! If you can code and have art skills, you're golden."
"Go into the medical field! You can do whatever you want as a hobby, and be well paid in the mean time!"
"Medical students have incredible amounts of debt, work odd hours, and have to pay ridiculous insurance just to cover their butts. Maybe you should rethink that."
"How about business?"
It just goes ON and ON, my head is spinning and I have even less of a clue than I did before!
This is just getting ridiculous.
Most of my friends seem to know what they want to do and where they're going in life, and here I am on the sidelines kicking my heels around the country. One of my friends mentioned a long time ago that I travel to escape my problems, and at the time I thought that he was totally out of line in saying that but now I think that he may have a point and I'm beginning to doubt everything!
So.
What's the solution here?
The only thing that comes to mind is "JUST KEEP SWIMMING."
All I can think to do is just work through all of this. I've signed up for part-time classes at my community college this coming winter, I'm going to find a job, I'm going to move out of my parents' house, I'm going to just slowly figure things out from there. Baby steps.
In 2010 I ended the year knowing for a fact that I wanted to be a teacher- things have changed so drastically since then! I've learned so much. I'm continuing to learn! Hopefully, the learning never stops, and ideally I'll figure out what I want to do with my life and where on earth I want to do it.
Until then...
I'm just gonna...
sit in the sun for a bit.
Yeah, that sounds nice.
[[later- it was nice for about five minutes and then I realized that it was much too hot and muggy and I have relocated back to my spot in a nice air-conditioned patch of sunlight.]]
