**The following is a short essay about my scattered thoughts while graduating college. This is not the typical format of most of my articles, but try to enjoy a more artistic and poetic style of writing**
Pins and needles, as my eyes sway side to side, moving from one dream to the next. Opportunities surround me. Faces, some happy and some sad. What once seemed to be laser focused is now blurry. My sight evades me, the faces fade, and the opportunities turn black. Is this darkness, this uncertainty, where I will always be. My confidence has grown enormously. Any task I set course for; I achieve. Where then does the uncertainty lie?
I collect myself. I put a smile on my face. My friends they surround me; they see, but for a second, me drift into my own world. Hardly noticeable to the untrained eye, and stopped before anyone can really question where I went. For me that second feels like an eternity. What waits ahead of me is not only exhilarating, it is also terrifying. My heart rate increases thinking about a successful career in corporate finance, or eventually as a business owner, but it skips a beat when I remember the promises I’ve made to myself.
How could I ever fulfill my greatest potential. A task that seems increasingly more impossible as the days go by. But everyone’s eyes are on me, mostly because I made them look so that I’d stay accountable. Their disappointment I can handle, but my own, that would be soul crushing. I was gifted one life and I will not waste it.
The gentle voice of a friend tells me that I’ve already done enough. “Look at your academic achievement. Look at your internships and your social life.” I smile and nod. I agree with them. Not for my sake, but for theirs. It makes them happy. They think it makes me happy. Everyone is better off, right?
If only life were as simple as happiness, a state that can often be evasive and destructive if pursued too extremely. Yet I find myself looking those I love in the eyes and saying “as long as you are happy.” Paradoxical by nature, I find myself at odds with the pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of what is right. Surely what makes us happy isn’t always right. Spiritually, I know that what is right is often painful, but I digress.
Happiness is a byproduct of a life meaningfully spent, not an object to be pursued, lest we feel like a donkey chasing a carrot on a stick. Joy is fulfilled when we pursue what is truly meaningful in life.
I drift back into my own world again, as a conversation so pointless enters my ears, what it is I cannot remember, as the very people speaking the words shall forget in mere days. My ears hear and my eyes see, but my mind is off in a distant land. This land is 5, 10, 15, 50 years from now. Almost like an out of body experience I see myself. What decisions will my 30-year-old self be satisfied with? What about my 70-year-old self?
Suddenly my trance is broken. “Are you ready for your last semester?” someone asks.
“Yes,” I respond in confidence. Not only has college been a life changing experience it has also been one step on a path of hundreds. The size of this step I do not yet know. Only in hindsight will I be able to fully appreciate how school as tested my limits, how it stretched my relationships, and how my mind has been changed.
To ask a college student how they changed over the course of their time is like asking a stone how the sculptor has chiseled it. The stone is not always able to see the areas the sculptor has detailed; it simply knows the pain of the chisel.
I enter this transitionary period of my life with a pervasive tension and yet calm peace. A unique position created by having limitless opportunities to pursue but limited time and energy to pursue them. What I will do, I do not know. How I do it, that’s a different story. “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men,” (Colossians 3:23) “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Mattew 5:16)
I close my eyes one last time, what appears to be a blink is a limitless time of thought in pure stillness. “What are you thinking?” a voice asks. All the words on these pages do not complete the whole story.
“Nothing,” I respond.
What an exhilarating time to be alive. This is the first in the great forks ahead of me. The company I choose, the place I live, the risks I take, the relationships I build and those I chose to keep, these endlessly journey through my head like wanderlusts seeking a place to call home. An unexplainable peace and an inarticulable pressure. I couldn’t be happier.
Four months from now I am sure I will be wondering nothing more than why I even gave it a thought.
**Thoughts on this format of writing? Please let me know**
Until next article.
Your blog is a constant source of inspiration for me. Your passion for your subject matter is palpable, and it’s clear that you pour your heart and soul into every post. Keep up the incredible work!