In a split moment your life could take a completely unexpected turn in the road and alter absolutely everything you’ve planned. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself when I witness my friends seemingly having their future selves in order. As for me, I’m not quite sure what I’m having for breakfast tomorrow. At 18 years old, I don’t know what I want to do with my life yet. In fact, I don’t have a clue where I’ll end up.
I don’t know where I want end up, but I know where I don’t want to end up- at a desk in a boring town somewhere in the country doing work that I hate. Arguably, these jobs do make a good amount of money and for some they provide a quality lifestyle. But to me, it seems more like a prison. Those who work these jobs always seem to dream of the future, they dream of beaches in Hawaii, of spending time with their family, of long weekends, and even of retirement. I don’t want to crave my time off. I don’t want to look forward to old age and the break from life it provides. I want to enjoy the job I’m doing and the life I’m living at all times and crave the thrill of every single bump in the road.
I don’t know where I want to end up, but I know I don’t want anything set in stone. Some of my friends want to be nurses, others want to be CEO’s, and a few dream of being engineers and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I dream of traveling the world. I want a future that takes me from the coast of California, to the Swiss Alps, to Shanghai and to Machu Picchu. I want a future that forces me to push my boundaries – to hike the Appalachian Trail, to do humanitarian work in underdeveloped countries, and to learn about new people and places from every corner of the planet.
I don’t know where I want to end up, but I know I want to make others’ lives better somehow. Whether that be through journalism like the path I’m on now – reporting stories to the public that expose dark yet important truths or sharing the stories of those without a voice otherwise. Or maybe through humanitarian work, volunteering for nonprofit organizations and improving and learning from the lives of those with much less and much more than I’ve had in my lifetime.
I don’t know where I want to end up, but I know that I never want to stop learning. I don’t mean in a classroom setting like the ones I spend time in now, but from real life experiences, places and people who know far more than I do. I want to learn new languages and teach others those that I know now. I want to try adventurous foods and learn about where they came from. I want to learn how to use an espresso drip and how to ride horses and how to scuba dive and absolutely everything in between.
I don’t know where I want to end up, but I know who I am now and that’s what matters. I am a student studying communications at my dream university. I write for four different publications and am proud of the editorials I produce. I work in my dining hall 15 hours a week enjoying my time spent making fancy coffee drinks and salads and burritos for my peers. I travel often and am never one to turn down an adventure.
I have absolutely no clue where I’ll end up in life, and that is fine by me.