by McKayla Holson, Editorial Editor
Being scared of the future is normal and perfectly fine. I am.
Growing up, I was surrounded by people who had “The Plan.” You know the one, the plan of where they would go to school, what they would major in, their career, their relationship status and whatever else you can plan out.
I’m still surrounded by people like that. Those who have passions, goals, reasons for doing what they are doing.
Me?
I don’t really have them. I mean, I have some, but not to the extent of someone who has their life actually planned out.
I came to college not knowing what to do and I’m in my last semester still not knowing what to do.
But, again, that’s okay.
If you notice, I can be a bit of a broken record at times.
I guess I’m afraid of failure in a sense. All my life, family, friends, neighbors, school staff, random people in the town and others have had this idea in their head of who I was, who I am and who I’m going to be.
What if I don’t amount to the value these people have appraised me at?
What if I disappoint them?
It’s so dumb to think like that, but I do sometimes.
My neighbor used to say that I was going to make a fantastic forensic scientist and I would solve a ton of crimes and help people out. Well, I’m a mass communication major so I’m not sure that’ll happen. Things change, but I don’t think that one is likely.
When people say things like that, it makes me ask myself if I chose the right major.
The thing is, I shouldn’t feel that way. People shouldn’t question every little choice they make in the world.
It’s okay to question what you’re doing, but follow your heart.
Cliché, but listen to that gut feeling. Do what you like, what you enjoy.
I was talking to a man while I was working the other day and he was telling me about his daughter. She’s around my age, in college and she changed her major.
His daughter was worried about the change, but he told her that it would be all okay and she just needed to make sure that what she did made her happy.
That stuck with me. It doesn’t matter very much about what makes others happy when it comes to your life. You have to be happy.
Why spend the rest of your life miserable as a doctor when you actually wanted to be a musician?
Those around us want us to be successful in life and have an idea of what THEY think success in YOUR life looks like. But, honestly, the biggest success in life is being happy with what you are doing.
As for having a fear of the future, I read an article by Marcia Reynolds Psy.D. titled ”How to Enjoy the Fear of the Future,” and she mentions that the brain reacts to transformation in the same way that it reacts to a crisis; that’s why people refer to transformations as a crisis. Kind of like when we say “mid-life crisis.”
Reynolds said the “crisis” occurs when we can’t answer three questions: Who am I? What purpose am I meant to fulfill? What will it take to feel content?
Sometimes we lose our sense of direction, our sense of purpose. Why are we here and what are we doing?
Reynolds talks about how we need to stop searching and digging for what feels “right.” We need to just let life take its course and things that are meant to be will be. At least, that’s what I took away from the article.
We need to focus on heading in a direction and stop focusing so much on the destination.
Something Reynolds said that I need to work more on is living for the feeling instead of the goal. I need to stop worrying about how my life will turn out and just enjoy what’s happening.
Forget the “where do you see yourself in five years?” questions. I’ll know where I’m at when I get there.
I think we all need to hear “it’ll be alright” a little more often than what we probably do, so this is me telling you that it’ll be okay.
Everything will fall into place, don’t worry about the goal so much. Keep it in mind, but just enjoy the journey.
Everything will work out, everything will eventually make sense