Do you know what you want to do after college? What’s your dream job? Do you at least have an idea for a career?
These are the three questions that never seemed to stop chasing me down the hallways in high school. After sitting in my advisor’s office, my freshman year of college, and talking for over an hour about any possible career path, I didn’t think I would ever have an answer. But do you want to know something? Two years later I can proudly say I still don’t have any answers.
The farther I get in my college career the more I’ve come to realize that it’s is important to stay focused on your long term goals, but it’s not always worth the extra stress. Studying for an exam? Important. Getting a good grade in the class? Very important. Focusing on what we can do right now in the moment is what matters most. Yes, we are all trying to better ourselves for the future but that doesn’t mean we need to have a blueprint of what the rest of our lives will look like. The sooner I stopped focusing on how my decisions would affect me years from now and started to think about how they could benefit me next week is when I was truly able to find purpose. Finding a major that made me realize what I want to do with the rest of my life was a life changing experience. It made me realize that school could be easier, tests were all about pushing myself, and professors were just trying to help. Choosing a career sounds scary to most, but when I found my calling, all I saw was clarity. Everyone finds their calling eventually, there are still days I question every decision I’ve ever made, but for the most part, those thoughts are only every once in a while.
Everyone has bad days. The majority of my days are sitting in a lecture and actually having it mean something to me. What my professors are saying right now will actually be something I get to use in the future, wherever that may take me. We have all waited for those moments of clarity, when what we are doing actually feels right. Now, I can finally say I have had more of those moments in the first three weeks of my junior year than I’ve had in my entire life.