Our whole lives, we’ve been working towards becoming “something”. Academia has been teaching us that we constantly need to be preparing for the next step. In kindergarten we were prepared for elementary school, in elementary school it was for middle school, middle school for high school and finally high school was preparing us for college. For picking what we want to do for the rest of our lives.
Excuse me…what? The rest of our lives???
How the heck does a 17 year old have the capability of deciding what they want to do for the rest of their life?
The future is a scary thing. For some people, like myself, it’s like a big black hole of unimaginable circumstances and possibilities. But somehow, that’s the best part of it all. The “Unknown” can be really freakin’ petrifying, but not knowing what’s going to happen next is so cool. Every day is a new surprise, a new adventure, a new start. And the most amazing part of the Unknown, is that it will always be there, even after you figure out what your calling is in life.
Personally, I find that being able to decide what you want to “do in life” at such a young age is kind of crazy, but if you truly know, then do it! And if you don’t… well if you don’t then so what? You have your whole life to figure out what your calling is, who says you need to know right now? Reality is that you can achieve your goals and your dreams at any age, and who says that your dream or your goal can’t change over time?
I know what it’s like to have big dreams. Dreams that almost seem unrealistic. We all know the feeling of the never ending thinking and scenario making that goes through our brains and eventually we end up psyching ourselves out of whatever it was we thought we could do. Or the late night talks you have with your friends at your typical hang out spot, thinking about the future and possible failure and it is scary.
But why does it have to be?
The way I look at things, if you’re unsure just exactly what it is that you want to do with your life, no matter what you’re doing right now, whether you’re in school, you’re taking a semester off, or you decided school isn’t really your thing, or you’re working 2 part time jobs, it doesn’t matter... the point is, you are always, constantly working on your life. You’re always climbing towards an end goal. And you are always learning new things, about family, friends, relationships, “the real world” and most importantly: yourself.
So take a breath. Accept the unknown. Accept the now and your younger years and living in the moment. It’s hard to try and become somebody when you aren’t even sure who you are yet. Accept failure. A lot of the time, you need to fail before you can succeed, but that’s just a matter of picking yourself up, brushing yourself off and getting back up to bat. YOU are doing uh-maz-ing. I promise you, you’re definitely not giving yourself as much credit as you deserve.
