Now I have a 2-3 month road trip with a foreigner planned (more on that later) around this vast, American wonderland we call the wild, wild West. After that, your guess is as good as mine. It'll either be more travel (possibly funded by teaching English to eager learners on a continent I have yet to explore) grad school (should I be foolish enough to undertake the application process while on the road), or moving to San Francisco or New York and knocking on doors until some merciful soul hires me.
Here, ladies and gentlemen, are the options I've laid out before me. The first step is to choose one, then narrow things down within that vague selection, then figure out how to make something work. Sounds easy! Now, where do I begin...?
Oh right, I have no clue.
They say, "Don't worry! Follow your heart and the right opportunity will present itself in good time. You just have to make sure you take it." Then I nod and breathe a sigh of relief before I go home and make myself blind and dizzy sitting in front of the dim computer screen scrolling through ten million job postings, university websites, and volunteer abroad programs waiting for the "right opportunity" to present itself. Then, my brain explodes. This has happened more times than I can count. Apparently, the internet does not have all the answers. Maybe I should try searching 'my soul' on Google or Wikipedia.
So what I'm wondering is this: how did you all come to decisions back when the world was your proverbial oyster? The way everyone else talks about it, you'd think they rolled through life without any stress at all over what to do next, where to go, or who to go there with. "Oh, I moved here, then got this job, then we met, then we went here, then we traveled, then we got married, then he got this job, then I got my masters here, then we moved..." Were things actually simpler back then? Or do people just tend to forget how hard it was to decide (and agree on) all that stuff?
If you have a nugget of wisdom you'd like share with me, please leave a comment. I promise, anything would be appreciated. Maybe you want to tell me to get a grip and be a grown up and stop dicking around on Blogger when I could be doing something productive. If so, that's fine too. I'll take anything.
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1 comment:
Take advantage of the lack of economic opportunity to do what I wished I had done more of--roaming through the country in a rusty Volkswagen. With the opportunity cost currently at zero, my advice would be to keep dicking around for as long as you feel like it. Growing up will always be an option available to you at a moment's notice. It doesn't even require much effort--you just need to change your mindset from not having a plan to having one. For now, don't have a plan--not even about not having plan for a while before you have a plan. Follow the random path of your post's title (Eeny meeny miny mo). Remember what Wordsworth said to the child in his "Intimations" ode:
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!
Were I 23 again (ah, life!), I'd do whatever I had to do to get some gas in the tank of my rusty Volkswagen, and hit the road.
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