"What's your major?" I don't know.
"What do you want to do after college?" I don't know.
"What do you want for dinner?" I don't know.
These are the questions that I am frequently asked on a daily basis, yet unable to answer. There are a lot of questions that I don't know the answers to but lately it seems that I am unable to answer more than I can. This is called the "I Don't Know" stage.
Simple questions that normally have a quick answer I now seem to stumble on. Could it be my overthinking, perhaps? Or maybe not thinking enough? I don't know. Literally. Nineteen years on this planet and I can't even decide what I want for dinner let alone what I want to do with the rest of my life.
As a young adult, we are expected to know exactly what we want to do and who we want to be the second we walk across that stage at our high school graduation. Suddenly we transform into "full functioning" adults when a few days prior we had to raise our hands to go to the restroom and got in trouble for speaking out of turn. It has been almost a year since I graduated from high school and let me tell you, I've never been so lost in my life.
High school never prepared me for the real world. Granted, I do know how to solve logarithmic equations and recite the quadratic formula...because that knowledge will be more useful than knowing how to balance a check book. However, upon my arrival to college I was left to fend for myself when it came to learning to budget my money, purchase groceries, manage my time, and do my laundry. Not to mention when you get sick in college and live on your own, you mom isn't there to make you feel better.
I guess I find myself in a sort of limbo. I'm not completely undecided with my major but I'm also not completely set on what I want to do or how to get there. I don't know what to do or even how to do it for that matter.
If I learned anything as my freshman year comes to an end, it's that it's okay to not know. The unknown is completely terrifying yet humbling. I may be 19 years old and have no clue what I want to do but that's alright. For God's sake you don't have to know what you want to do at 24 either. You just need to have goals and aspirations. If you, too, find yourself in this "I Don't Know" stage just take into consideration that you have the potential to do anything you want. You get to start from the ground up and make yourself into anything you want. I learned that it's okay to do things on your own. Being alone does not mean that your lonely (even if you feel like it some days). It means that you're independent. I learned to put yourself first, find out what you do and don't like, and most importantly, to have fun doing it.
Life is too short to stress about not knowing. Embrace it. Be spontaneous. Everything will work itself out as long as you give it a reason to. So instead of dragging your feet with your head down through this stage of not knowing, run. Pick up your head and sprint. You have your whole life ahead of you.
Now go live it.
