When I started applying to colleges two years ago, I applied to be an English major and would constantly be asked, “Oh cool, but what do you want to do with that?” or “So you’re going to be a journalist?” or even “Oh, teaching! How fun!” (Even though the word education never left my lips). I found myself struggling to answer questions like these. No, I didn’t want to be a journalist and I certainly do not have the patience to be a teacher, so at this point, I was clueless. Or I thought I was because of these haunting questions and my inability to say what I was really thinking. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, but I know one thing for sure: I wanted my profession to have something to do with writing.
After my first year of college, I added a second major, Political Science. I still would be questioned, “English and Political Science? What are you going to do for a job?” I thought by adding a second major, I would stop getting asked about my future. I thought I had figured it out. I wanted to work in the government, writing and analyzing policies that could possibly turn into law. That’s what I tell people. Currently, that’s still what I’d like to do, but more than anything, I want to write a novel.
A few years after I began writing seriously, I started sharing some of the things that I wrote, like poems, articles, or just pieces of my thoughts that I was able to get down on paper. I was nervous, but excited to get my writing out into the world. The feedback that I have received only confirmed that my dreams were possible though, and the support that has followed me afterwards is something that I am truly grateful for. Although I should not need such validation from others, it has helped tremendously in understanding that I have the capability to do great things. It’s not until people read the things that I write that they understand why I want to do it for the rest of my life.
I have realized many things in college, but the best and most important things I have realized are within myself. I know now that I write not to impress others or to be the best. I write to share my story, my thoughts and feelings, to take the things that are in my head and get them down on paper, so I don’t go crazy. I write to relate to others and to tell people that they are not alone in the battles and struggles of everyday life. I would be wrong to say that I even write because it’s something that I know that I’m good at.
But above all, I write because it’s what I love to do, more than anything else in the entire world.
The questions about my future don’t bother me anymore. I know that there are some things that some people will never understand, no matter how hard you want them to and that’s okay. I also know that what I want to do with my future has nothing to do with the people who ask or judge or make faces when I give them an honest answer because I know that I will change the world with my words.
