Last column of the quarter. I’m a senior, so my column choices include: addressing life in the real world or reflecting nostalgically on Northwestern. Given previous columns, the sincerity of the second option might be doubted, so I will give the first option a shot.
I worry constantly about my lack of direction. For those of us not enrolling directly into medical school, the next eight years, especially next year, can be symbolized with one enormous question mark.
If I could have whatever I wanted for Christmas, it would be a five-year plan. Well, that and to be Britney Spears, but I’m not expecting either under the Christmas tree.
But I’m determined to find the silver lining.
Maybe we all have something not covered in our major requirements, some hidden potential. The geniuses of history stand as proof. Imagine Van Gogh if he never picked up a paintbrush, or Justin Timberlake if he had thought singing and dancing were for sissies? The world would have been robbed of many masterpieces, including both “The Bedroom” and “Bye Bye Bye.”
The Mickey Mouse Club tapped Timberlake’s talents early, but Van Gogh faced a longer road to stardom. He became an artist at 28, only after trying his hand at both teaching and the clergy. When he did finally pick up a paintbrush, “No one, not even he himself, suspected that he had extraordinary artistic gifts,” according to the Van Gogh Museum of Amsterdam Web site. He was, in fact, an “an inept but impassioned novice.” It can’t be the worst fate to be unsure at age 21.
Also, I have concerns about those concerns. Can you tell I’m an insomniac? Everything seems to revolve around a career. Granted, most of our waking hours for the next few decades will be spent on the job, but I’m afraid I will forget to look past that.
The question of what you are is not the same as who you are. Will I remember to differentiate between the two? When I look back at my life, I would like to be able to say I was just like my grandparents.
My Grandma Betty is extraordinary. She chauffeurs all her friends who can no longer drive, taking them grocery shopping and keeping them company. Name a charitable activity and she does it. I have yet to find a book to give her that she hasn’t read.
When I look at her life, I think about how much she has given to everyone around her, the multitudes of lives she has touched and everything to which she has opened her mind and heart.
Will I look back at my life and only see the corporate ladder I climbed? Not that the two are mutually exclusive. It just seems we’re supposed to focus on the one and neglect the other.
Where does this lead? Unfortunately, not to any conclusion.
But no matter, life is probably made up more of little steps forward than huge leaps. I’ll just seek to keep perspective and try to keep my eyes and my mind open to new possibilities.
And even if everything else goes wrong in life, there will always be ice cream.
