The Future

I'm sitting in the UCSD library, working on my take-home final due Saturday (that I want to turn in tommorrow/thursday so as to not have anything to do thursday or friday), I can't seem to stop my mind from wandering back to a familiar path, a subject it has been drawing back to over and over again in the recent weeks: the future.

My constant re-tracing of thoughts about the future is somewhat vexing to me; one of my personal rules is to avoid thinking about the future, based on the idea that if I think about the future, I would distract myself from relishing the present; that I might come up with all sorts of unrealistic expectations that, because they would never come to fruition, would break my heart; that I'll freak out worrying about things that I have no way of being able to do anything about. I feel this system has generally worked out well for me, apart from several incidents involving my complete inability to plan (eg: hiding from crazies and cops in a closed train station in a little town in France hopped up on so much espresso I couldn't tell if the reason why my hand was shaking was due to fear or caffeine...oh, and the time I spent the night freezing underneath an overhang in Spain when it was raining...etc). What comes to pass has come to pass; my life, without any conscious effort on my part, was already following a plan, although I guess through following instincts, I've accidentally deviated from the norm. I've almost never spent more than 3 consecutive years at one school; I've left pieces of my heart in the hands of friends I never thought I would be lucky enough to have; I traveled to places I never imagined I'd see, with people I never imagined I could learn from; I fell in love despite circumstances no one believed were realistic. I'm grateful to my instincts for every time they've taken me off the path of well-worn expectations.

And yet, as I'm reaching the beginning of my (potentially) last year of formal instruction, I can't help but think about the future. Since as I mentioned before, I have absolutely no capability to plan, this preoccupation with the future seems to be a subconscious plot conceived by the subversive part of my brain to torture me. Many of my friends and acquaintances have graduated and are already "out there" on the path of making their dreams manifest in a tangible form, while I'm still doddering away finishing take-home finals. I'm starting to think my ideas about leaving the future to the future were misguided and escapist rather than sensible life plans…because here I am, standing at the end of the pre-planned plank, staring into a formless, unending depth and trying to see into it as if it were a scrying bowl.

The future has never been more unknown to me. I knew after elementary school there was middle school; that after middle school there was high school, and then on to college. Sure, I didn’t know which middle school, high school, or college I was going to—but it didn’t necessarily matter, because I was convinced that no matter what school I went to, all I had to do was work hard and I would turn out alright. I even knew I was going to spend some time studying abroad, and spend time in D.C. The question now is not “Which institution will I go to next”, but “will I go to an institution?” Before me lies a myriad of choices—Peace Corp? If so, which country? ESL certificate? Take a course in Quechua? Go straight to the American Work Force? If so, for global issues or local issues? Should I try my luck getting a job in Latin America? Should I go to Grad School? If so, what should I be going to grad school for?

I know I should be thinking of this precipice of the unplanned as an opportunity, not as something to fear—life is a blank page, its unwritten (as Natasha Beddingfield would say), what freedom to shape your own life! But of course, to anyone who has had to write ANYTHING EVER and had a deadline to turn it in, a blank page is freakishly scary. (Have you ever said, “oh goody, the page is blank, this essay could turn out in any way whatsoever!” I seriously doubt it.) And there is a deadline. When I graduate, in either 8 months or a year, I will have to do something; and whatever it is that I choose, it will involve giving up things I hold dear for other things I hold dear. Worse, I’m used to thinking of things in assignments: once its done, its done; once the page is written, its written, and I can move on—but this page is an ongoing project, one that will not be finished until the day I die. (And with my luck, probably mid-sentence.)

I guess whatever I do directly after I graduate won’t alter the course of my life for good or for bad; but it could. I want to live the life worth living, and I’m afraid that I’ll fall into the patterns I’ve been accustomed to, following what is prescribed rather than cutting my own way through the jungle. I want to write a book or 12, I want to bring world peace; some of my goals in life seem as though the fulfillment of one would mean the ignoring of others.

And this is the point at which my thoughts once again devolve into helpless sputtering; so many choices, so many options, and so much confusion. I guess I’ll be going back to that take-home final.