Halfway There
Nathan Schmidt
Halfway there! Semester one has ended already! It just flew by, and now it is gone. We are halfway to the end of the school year. Usually, that statement would bring me joy and excitement. Sure, there is still a ways to go, but I think that halfway through the school year is something to be excited about. Why, then, do I feel no excitement? Instead, I just feel scared. I only have one semester left and then it is summertime. Summertime will come and go and then I will be a senior. Oh my goodness! I am not ready for that! I have often been asked by family and friends, "so have you been looking at colleges yet?" My response is usually, "not really, but I have plenty of time." I suppose I am just trying to convince myself that that is the case at this point. Really, though, I don't have plenty of time. And that scares me. Where will I go? I don't know. What will I do? I don't know. How will I get there? I don't know.
Halfway there. Halfway to summer. Halfway to senior year. Then I will need to start making the decisions. The decisions that will affect me for the rest of my life. How can a 16-year-old be expected to do that? It brings me comfort to know that I am not the only one who feels this way. I know that there are plenty of others who have no idea what they will do and where they will go. I always thought I would be one of the kids who had it all figured out. I was wrong. So, maybe I need to buckle down and figure it out. Or maybe I need to forget about it and just hope my path will reveal itself to me. I don't know what this next semester will hold for me, and I hate thinking about my future. But maybe it is time that I decide what this next semester will hold. Maybe it is time that I decide what my future will look like.
Halfway there! One more semester. Not a whole lot of time left. It is time for me to make this semester count.
Do any of you have your future planned out?
If so, how did you get to that point?
If you are unsure about your future, how do you plan on dealing with those life-changing decisions?
It's really difficult having to make the abrupt transition from being a kid your entire life to suddenly needing to have a plan ready for your entire future. I also hate thinking about my future since it gives me a lot of anxiety and I end up ignoring it, but that only makes my situation worse. I like to think that the universe has a plan laid out for me and that everything will be okay, but I also know that I need to become responsible enough to start taking action to look at colleges and consider job options.
ReplyDeleteLike you said, it's hard to know what you want to do at such a young age while everything's moving so quickly. For example, I'm also unsure of what I want to do in the future, but with not much time left I have to figure something out. I think a good start to dealing with this is visiting schools that I may be interested in and taking the first year or two to decide on what major I would like to pursue once I go to the school I want to. Maybe then I'll have a true idea of what my future could look like, but its hard to determine at the moment.
ReplyDeleteI still can't wrap my mind around the fact that I'll be a senior next year. Honestly it is very scary, like you said. It seems like there's so many milestones and life experiences I'm supposed to complete before I graduate, and I feel like I haven't completed any so far. I guess my plan for the future is just take it bit by bit, and not worry too much about the future under the assumption that it'll all work out in the end. I know that assumption isn't necessarily true, but it's the only way I'll be able to keep my sanity.
ReplyDeleteYour path will reveal itself to you, sooner or later. Relish the not knowing, because it means you can be constantly exploring. All those people who think they know their path now? Most of them will turn out to be wrong. When I was in high school, I wanted to go to college for creative writing. Then when I enrolled I thought maybe journalism. By the time I declared my major, I had settled on Electronic Media Production... and then 4 years after I graduated I decided to become a teacher. And I am not an anomoly! Have faith that you'll end up in the right place, no matter how long it takes!
ReplyDelete