Dear Undecided,
Have you ever wondered who decided it was a good idea to crack the ovular white thing that comes out of a chicken on a very hot rock and then eat it? Or who thought that connecting the very powerful batteries of two cars together with conductive wires would end well for them? These people had no idea what they were doing, but without their lack of direction, we might still be riding in horse-drawn carriages without egg sandwiches to get us by. Christopher Columbus had no idea where he was going or where he was once he got there, but managed to discovered a continent. Ben Franklin flew a kite in the rain and got struck by lighting, but somehow managed to turn it into a source of light for the whole world. Even the best of us are clueless.
No one knows what is going on. If it seems like they do, they're just really good at hiding it. We all struggle trying to figure it out, whatever it may be. Our passions, our morals, our place in this world. Even the declared double majors with their graduate programs already picked out and their careers charted. Even though I say I know what I want to do, I think I spend more time trying to give myself peace of mind about my future than anything else. When you commit fully to something, you spend a lot of time checking to make sure it is actually the thing you're sure you want to throw all of your time and energy at.
The best piece of advice I ever received was not delivered to me in words, but shown through action. In between 10th and 11th grade, after being in finance for 25 years, my dad decided he was going to quit his job and start his own business selling birdseed and other backyard bird products. For as long as I can remember, our backyard has been decked out to the max with bird feeders and houses, and our coffee tables littered with aggressively dog-eared copies of Birds of the Northeast. It's taken and few years and there were to hiccups along the way, but the store is on track to have its grand opening this fall.
From this, I took one thing that's made every decision I've had to make since much easier: nothing is permanent. Not once has it been demanded that what you chose to study in school has to be your career until you die. No where did anyone ever say that if you want to transfer universities after a year or two, you have failed. Trust yourself. You know what is best for you right now and that's what you should focus on. If you want to study performing arts, but decide senior year to you want to be a doctor, you can. (No really, you can. This med school actually prefers to accept students who have don't have a background in hard sciences.) One of the most daunting things about choosing a school and a major is that it feels like you are signing the rest of your life away with one $500 deposit. Witnessing a dream-chasing career change after 25 years made me realize that if you do what makes you happy, the rest will fall into place. Remember that.
The second best piece of advice I've ever received was a tweet from the @LifeHacks twitter account. It said something along the lines of 'what you spend your spare time doing is the thing you should be doing for the rest of your life.' At first I laughed, thinking it's not possible to make a career out of binge watching Netflix, but then I tried taking those 140 characters seriously. I realized that I had always loved reading more than most of my peers and slowly, stumblingly, figured out the rest. When I thought about it, Netflix was just something I did to pass the time. Reading is something I make time for, and something I miss dearly when I don't. That is how I know I have chosen the right career path for myself at this time in my life. But I also know that it's all subject to change at any point, and that's okay.
So as you, the Undecided Major, approach this year of higher education, be it your first, second, fifth or ninth, know that while you struggle through an abundance of Gen Ed classes while contemplating the pros and cons of attending a university you can't afford, think about this instead. You are not the only person who has no idea what they want to do. People are still trying to figure out what they want to be when they grow up when they're 55 and have two kids. Some of us take life advice from unofficial twitter accounts. Others give themselves anxiety trying to solve a question whose answer is simply found in the form of a favorite pastime. Almost none of us have anything in any type of order. You are not alone in the struggle to discover your purpose on this Earth and you never will be. And anyway, Netflix isn't going anywhere while you try to figure it out.
