What Do I Have To Offer?

A metaphor, perhaps? I don't know. But I like the picture.

When I was in high school, if there was something you could read about in a book, there was probably a time when I considered it my thing. You know, my thing: my calling in life, my passion, my fate. I pictured myself as a doctor, a medical researcher, a novelist, a journalist, (for a couple of hours one afternoon) a poet, a professor of literature, a political activist, and, from the vantage point of a high school senior, all of these futures appeared equally possible.

Then I started college, and I stopped believing in fate. Just because I memorized all the paths of blood flow in the human heart and my best friend once said she could see me being a surgeon, I wasn't necessarily meant to cut people open and fix broken things inside of them. Likewise, just because I was reading Dickens and the Brontë sisters and Dumas at 14, my future didn't necessarily lie in dissecting these texts and passing judgement on what the writers were trying to say. I can't pinpoint the moment it came to me, but sometime during my freshman year of college, I realized that I could do whatever I wanted; I could change the way things work out just by changing my mind. It was liberating, and it was disorienting. For the first time in my life, I couldn't picture my entire future stretched out in front of me because I knew, in all likelihood, I would spend the rest of my life changing my mind, always searching for some better option than the one that currently holds my attention.

Had I majored in biology or creative writing (neither of which I actually majored in, both of which I very seriously considered), I probably would still have reached my current impasse. I would still be debating whether it's possible to do something that's romantic and creative and idealistic while working toward practical solutions of at least one of the world's problems and making at least enough money to survive. My instincts say that there's no real reason for this to be impossible, but, like everything worth doing, it'll take a fair amount of planning and a fair amount of luck, not to mention a bit of spontaneity. I may have to take jobs that don't come with the perk of a guaranteed successful career trajectory. Someday I may take a job at a nonprofit that doesn't necessarily work in a field of personal interest, but this type of work would nonetheless give me a sense of what it actually means to work for a nonprofit organization. I may live in quite a few cities before I find one that's a good fit.

I have to start seeing every experience as valuable. I have to stop believing that there will be a point in life where I make one decision that cements the future conditions and circumstances of my life. Maybe the real world isn't the all-or-nothing, black-and-white place I once assumed it to be. Maybe there's room for mistakes and changing your mind. Maybe everything won't always work out according to plan, and when it doesn't, I'll have to learn to make the most of what opportunities are available. I think it's a lesson worth learning.