As I grow older, I find myself becoming more and more indecisive about what I want to do with my life. I find this a little funny, considering I always knew exactly what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be.
When I was 5 or 6 I made the decision that I was going to become a doctor; it was my destiny. I told everyone - my parents, my brother, I even dressed up as one two Halloweens in a row. Now I'm an incoming junior in college, double majoring in English and Economics, and it's safe to say that I am nowhere close to that 5-year-old's career dream. Instead of trying to figure out what I want for lunch or what to name my goldfish, I face bigger challenges and uncertainties. Will the career path I choose make me successful and happy? Is my resume impressive enough? Do I have enough money in my bank account this month (the answer to that is always no)?
College can be a scary time when faced with these questions, but it's these questions that forced me to realize that it's impossible to plan out my life to a tee. College, especially the first two years, is intended to provide you with all the tools needed to figure out a path that's right for you. Many of my professors have even stressed the importance of trying out different classes and taking my time, allowing me to learn what I am and am not interested in. College has taught me that it's okay not to know exactly what I want to do and where I want to go, and in just the first two years I've already changed my mind more than once.
I came into freshman year as a psychology major, planning to continue on to medical school to become a psychiatrist. This has obviously changed, and in my second semester of that first year I decided I wanted to add a second major, economics. The following semester after that I decided, hey, maybe I didn't like psychology after all, and dropped it altogether and added English to the list. College is a time for change, growth and discovery, and confusion and indecisiveness are inevitable during the journey.
If I were to have planned out my entire life, or even just my four years of college, I would have caused myself a lot of disappointment and frustration. Of course direction isn't a bad thing, and it's good to lay out a tentative plan or two; however, the key word here is "tentative," because no one can predict the many speed bumps and pot holes that will encountered on any given day. In fact, I have learned that it's usually these setbacks that ultimately push you further, and with every one or two steps back you end up taking three or four more forward. Not knowing is not always a bad thing; instead, not knowing can be seen as leaving room for growth and eventual "knowing." Life is meant to be ambiguous, and college has taught me that, above all, I have plenty of time to figure out which paths I want to follow.
