Going to college only to find out, I don’t like college.
My story starts in a middle-class family that worked hard to put me through private education and poise me to be an academic powerhouse. However, as I am coming to terms with the current existential crisis that this pandemic has put everyone in, a realization has occurred. I am not happy. Not with where this world is going or the current global health crisis (not to say that those aren’t things to be unhappy about,) but instead with my destiny. It has taken a race war, global health pandemic, multiple suicides, death, a few hurricanes, a tornado, and an increase in my body fat percentage to realize that things need some severe change in my life.
That paragraph was hefty, and if you need to re-read it, now is the time because of its an uphill battle from here…
As a sophomore in the school of business, I have come to grips with the probability that once I get a degree, I will be a cubicle computer. I do not want to live to vacation. My goal in life is not to work throughout my good years on this planet only to retire and have 20 goods years, filled with arthritis and Ensure. I want to L.I.V.E. With every capital letter. However, college is not agreeing with this life goal. For some reason, I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up, but I know one thing for sure, that being a cog in the corporate machine is NOT IT CHEIF. (Lots of caps lock ahead, you’ve been warned.)
As I sit on the desk of my dorm room, peering out at the windy September morning, I still have no clue where I am headed. My family has worked extremely hard, and I am a cliche broken record for saying that they would not be happy if I dropped out, but sometimes it feels like my only path to fulfillment and happiness is to strike out on my own and be somebody I can be proud of. Currently, I am not happy with where my life is. I also do not have a plan to figure out how to be satisfied with who I am. Going to tell me I’m spinning my wheels, going in circles? I know, welcome to the psychological hamster wheel inside my head.
I have not found what I am good at or passionate about yet (if you do not know what that feels like, you are lucky but, imagine a compass without a needle, and there you have it.) Life feels like a constant effort to fill a void inside me with happiness, and I am not depressed, but I feel like I am merely wasting my time. Wasting my time in college, getting a degree that I probably won’t use only to have mounting collections notices from the government telling me I have gone delinquent on my loans. This seems to be the future I am reading form the tea leaves, my friends. Tell me, how do I avoid this future? Where is my mask, hand-sanitizer, and social distancing, regarding the scary possibility of wasted youth?
It’s not all doom and gloom, I have made some good friends and my living situation is very good! I have food in my belly, a roof over my head, and at least a general understanding of what is going on. So, there is a happy ending to this story, but the saga is far from over.
