The summer after my Freshman year, while working in our yard, I told my mom “I don’t know what I want to do or who I am.” She responded that “you should’ve figured that out in high school. You need to pick a major and go with it.” Many times occurred after that when I would bring up how confused I was in so many aspects of my life. Who am I? What do I want to do for my forever? I brought up that I wanted to try interior design, and she told me I could never do well in that because of how I dress (unprofessionally) and because I had never shown interest in it before. She told me that she had always wanted to do interior design, and when I asked her why she didn’t do it she simply said “it doesn’t guarantee pay or a job.” Instead of following her dreams, my mom became a nurse. She works hard at her job, and she’s great at it. However, it isn’t what she wanted. This got me thinking!
I don’t think my mom hates her job, but when I started thinking about my more immediate family, I realized that both sets of my grandparents and each of my parents had only ever had jobs that they NEEDED, not that they dreamed of or felt a sincere sense of happiness in. When my dad was a firefighter, he did have a brief moment of love for his job. Then, my little sister was born, and the hours weren’t worth the pay. He had to move on to working offshore like his father and brothers.
It’s now my junior year in college, and guess what? I still don’t know anything. They don’t tell you enough that you won’t figure it out. In some ways, I feel like a failure to myself and my family. In other ways, I try to tell myself “it’s okay” and “it’ll work out”. I thought that I had figured out some things: who my friends are, what I enjoy, what I hope to accomplish, etc. Then, recently one of my best friends and I had a falling out, and she told me “you not being here for a week has made me feel like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. I want to meet new people.” The reason I say all of this isn’t for a pity party but because I thought I had finally understood something then it all fell apart. There are no hard feelings, but quickly that part of my life was now over forever. Even worse I started to hate myself for making her feel that way. Then she said “by the way person b was wondering why you unfollowed them from Instagram and Snapchat.” It was this sentence that made those bad feelings melt away.
I realized not only can I not control what happens to me, but I can’t control how others feel about me, what the future holds, or how it’s going to make me feel.
I can control how I respond to the events that take place in my life!
I can choose to leave toxic friends when they make me sad because why would I want someone in my life if they make it miserable. Why would I participate in clubs if they bring me no joy and I’ve grown to be uninterested in it?
The point of life is simply to learn to be okay. Being selfish and not going out with friends is okay. Going separate ways from friends doesn’t HAVE to be dramatic. It can be on good terms. Allowing yourself to feel sad, angry, and happy is fantastic! The point of life is to live without regret because you don’t know when a moment will become a memory, or when tomorrow won’t come.
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it’s called the present.” – Master Oogway. (Kungfu Panda)