There is the safe options of going home to the sunny state of Florida and going to some college that dozens of my high school classmates attended and graduated and continuing on the boring, expected life I had intended when I graduated high school. There is also the option of moving in with a favorite relative in the midwest and attending a university said relative works at and getting the degree my family feels would be a good fit, plus meeting a smart guy with a bright future while I'm there. The little rebel inside likes the idea of doing something totally in the opposite direction like attending culinary school in a city I've never been to, or just packing my bags and going to Africa to live with some nuns I know from back in the day for a few months.
The point of today's post is that I am the typical American twenty-something. I have no idea what to do. No driving force to do anything in particular. I'm not one of the people who wanted to be a doctor from the time they were four with their first Fisher-Price Doctor Kit and have that enviable motivation to go through Med School no matter how difficult it is. When asked what I wanted to be in first grade, I said I wanted to be a banker model pilot. All at once. Banker because my dad was one, model because I liked how beautiful models were and a pilot because I loved Top Gun. Looking back, I can tell you exactly who inspired each one of my many career aspirations over the past twenty years with the exception of one. I wanted to own a dude ranch, and I have no idea who... Nevermind. My best friend went to one one Christmas and I liked the idea. See? Not a single aspiration that's ever been mine because it's what I want. I wanted Engineering because the grown ups in my life told me how much money I'd make (I wanted to work in third world countries or for companies to make things run better with Industrial Engineering). I wanted nursing because it has a solid future and I wanted to work in Africa. I went for the military because all the people I respect most have a military background and I needed to feel like I could depend on my own strength instead of needing others. I tested accounting, education, and a few others because people said that's where they always saw me. The truth is, the only thing I know I want is to travel and to affect people.
So this is the beginning of my road. The beginning of trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing. I know now that figuring out what you want to do for the rest of your life is stupid because no one knows what they want to do forever when they're twenty. You're going to have a few different careers through your life. I just need to figure out the next five years. Who knows, maybe I'll do trade school after trade school and then become a stay at home mom and use my plethora of skills to save money on various household expenses like auto repair, haircuts, massages, fancy meals, etc.
The dream is to be driving through East Asia or Africa writing a blog about my adventures, but the chances of that happening? Who knows. All I know is I have a big wide open door in front of me and about thirty different roads to pick from, and one of those annoying friends who is constantly right telling me that I need to do something for me, take a risk, and forge my own path.
Whelp, here goes nothing...
