2025. I will be 29. I spend so much time thinking about my future and what I want to become and who I will be that it seems outrageous to put those numbers on paper and think, “That will be me one day.”
I think back to the last 10 years of my life and it doesn't seem like anything could happen so fast. In third grade I was a chubby kid who hated sports and loved to read but played sports anyway because I never had the courage to speak up. At that point, 10 years into the future seemed like a lifetime. College was one of those things I never thought I would reach, yet here I am starting my sophomore year.
What I’ve found about life is that it’s impossible to measure your success by the future, and especially the past. The past is easy to understand; it happened, there are lessons learned and you move on. Nothing in the past should ever define a person unless one chooses to be consumed by it. The future is different though. “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” is the common question today. Yet, amid constant uncertainty, I find it more important to ask ourselves, “Where are you right now and why are you here?”
Too often we spend most of our young adult lives thinking about the future and obsessing over all the proper steps we need to take in order to achieve something later on. Students can all too easily find themselves caught up in decisions that will have a lasting impact on their lives. So yes, a lot is riding on the future, but what does that say about our lives now? Should we put aside our current wants and desires just to ensure a future we might only be skeptical about?
I say no. We as people are evolving beings. Day to day our wants and interests change, our personalities grow and opportunities open up without warning. Instead of placing ourselves in boxes, for example: “I am a Physics major so I will only focus on physics-related classes and opportunities and internships and jobs for the rest of my life.” While that example is extreme, I find it makes its point. Today, students are almost too focused on achieving an expected career right out of college, and following suit, trying to make as much money as possible. Money is a major proponent in life - one of the biggest, in fact. It dominates the motives for most human action and I can’t disagree with that. Nonetheless, I can’t lie to myself and say that money is the root of all my decisions.
Instead of pegging myself for only one specific career goal, I take every day as it comes. During my freshman year, I changed my major after fall semester and picked up a double major throughout spring semester. Even now, as I prepare to go back this fall, I find myself wanting to change programs again because my interests are ever-changing. This might be counterintuitive toward ever receiving my degree, but that doesn't matter so much. I find that learning and growing is a never-ending journey. With life being as short as it is, why not consume everything the world has to offer?
It’s easy to think about the future and want to be a certain way or have certain things. I think all the time about how simple life would be if I could know exactly what my life would become, but that takes away the fun of it, right? Life is full of twists and turns and unexpected people you will meet and shake things up. Just this past year I met a person who ended up taking me to Hong Kong to intern for a newspaper. If my mind had been turned off to the idea of going outside my perceived career goals at the time, I would have never said yes to the crazy opportunity and gained a love for journalism. So I see life as taking every day and gauging how you feel and becoming what you are due to those feelings.
Ten years from now I will be what I will be. I don’t want to know right now who I will become or what I will be doing. Right now I will continue my path in journalism and history. I will spend my days writing and reflecting, growing not only as a person, but as a member of this grand planet, intertwining my life with others and spreading love and joy to all those I meet on my journey. Maybe I will be a prominent, world-class journalist, perhaps a humble poet, maybe an author. Maybe I will act on my desires to move out west (I am from Maryland) and live out in the wilderness and get my soul in line with nature. Maybe I will find love tomorrow and settle down to have a family.
What matters the most is that we are honest with ourselves. If we lie to ourselves, what do we profit? I am here in this world for my happiness and to do what I like. For some, the path is clear and paved; for others, like me, the uncertainty keeps us alive.
To 2025: when you come, I will be there in some form or another. As for me here in 2015, I am living life and learning and taking every opportunity for what it is. I hope to find this life as exciting as my first 19 years. If the next 10, 20, 30 or 40 years are just as spontaneous, I will know I have lived for the right things. Not knowing a thing, just keeps me smiling and as excited as anything, to discover what each day will bring.
