Where Are We Headed, Really?

College decisions and the impending graduation of the class of 2016 is a reminder to current juniors that “You better start getting yourself together real soon, son.”

Yet, I find myself drifting farther and farther away from the concrete plans into which I have been investing my time and energy since as early as 7th grade. As everyone else seemingly makes progress on their life goals, I’ve begun to regress – at least, in the traditional sense.

My parents both hail from the People’s Republic of China, land of almighty leader Mao Zedong. After moving to the United States neither of them found the “land of the free” to be very welcoming, and though they ended up succeeding, they had to work especially hard to do so. Now they want me to get into a good college, so that I’ll have an additional 4 years to cultivate my identity.

While I may not be an expert on life, I do have one humble piece of advice I would like to share: take a step back, and ask yourself whether the path you’re going down now is really the one you still want to be on years later.

Perhaps I’ve just been lazy, but I’ve only ever taken a cursory glance at the traditional “college to grad school to job” life path and checked to see that I won’t be financially disintegrating at 30.

It’s important to consider other possibilities however, even ones that initially seem unfathomable. Don’t ask yourself if you’re okay with where you think you’ll be in 10 years, but rather, if there’s somewhere else you’d rather be.

I have always been encouraged to think inside the box, unless outside the box means “drop out of college, but only do it to pull some crazy-smart stunt so you can be super rich, like Steve Jobs or something, and then go back to living in Silicon Valley where you and your family spent 13 years driving past corporate complexes and paying too much mortgage.”

They say hindsight is 20/20, and foresight is – I don’t know, probably some number that really sucks. As for me, I’m pretty blind both ways. Whatever lessons I was supposed to have learned in high school, I probably didn’t. But I have learned this: it’s easy to fall into the pattern of “work on this first and do that later.” Worry about getting good grades and good AP scores now, cry over college applications next year. Do whatever you can to get yourself into said college this year, stress yourself out about majors when you get there. Put your effort into your 4 years of college studies now, decide on your career path after you graduate.

If you’re like me, then at each of these stages, it’s difficult to break out of the pattern, likely because you don’t want to take risks that may jeopardize your future. If you’re like me, you have people telling you that by focusing on succeeding at 1 thing at a time, your road in life will eventually lead you somewhere good.

That dream, however, is one that will only come true for the super-focused and self-disciplined.  If I lose focus, having 4 extra years to choose my life path will mean having 4 extra years to procrastinate, and to work toward good grades to earn myself 4 more years of procrastination in grad school. Before I know it, I’ll have spent 8 years procrastinating, and then I’ll take on some random job to financially sustain myself. And then one day, I’ll wake up to find myself a middle-aged woman working in a cubicle, with gray hair and a drinking problem.

Of course, I’m not trashing the “college-grad school-job” process itself; it’s a good, solid life plan, and perhaps it is your plan. To those of you for whom that holds true, I congratulate you and envy the luxury you have of going into this process with the security of knowing that this is what you want.

But for those of you who are unsure, I urge you to consider this: when you think about yourself at 30, don’t just consider whether you’ll be doing okay. Consider whether you will be able to pay off the mortgage on your large, suburban home, and if you’ll be able to pay your kids’ tuition, or if you would rather be using that money to buy Persian rugs for your bungalow, or on gemstones and silver wire for your budding Etsy jewelry shop.

It’s not necessary to plan out your whole life now. You’ll probably forget about it later anyways, and then you’ll have wasted your time. But remember that time doesn’t care about you and isn’t going to wait around for you to make up your mind. When you tell yourself that you’ll “think about it later,” make sure there is, in fact, going to be a “later.”

For all you freshmen and sophomores that have a few more course selections to go before graduation, think about where your interests lie and choose classes that cater to them. If you’re feeling overwhelmed and feel the need to drop or switch a class, consider keeping the ones that teach you what you want to learn, rather than the least rigorous ones or the ones that assign the least homework or have the highest passing rate. Focus on whether you’re learning the things that you want to learn.

If your dream is becoming a business tycoon and you feel that the only way you’re going to achieve that is to take a couple of APs and Honors that don’t particularly interest you but will get you into Wharton, go for it. The point is, if you’re doing something, make sure it’s a step in the path that you sincerely want to take in life. Everyone is working towards something different, and what you’re doing right now is, probably, helping you build towards your own goals.

We’ve all heard about the inevitable “midlife crisis,” which is when people realize at 40 or so that their lives suck and they’re not where they wanted to be in life. If you’ve seen this happen to someone else, you know that some people have an incredibly difficult time turning their life around, while others realize that it’s too late altogether, or that change is not worth the sacrifices that come with it. With a little foresight, this doesn’t have to happen to you.

We’ve all heard the phrase “YOLO.” The number of people who understand its literal meaning, but remain oblivious to its figurative implication is surprising. Many young people think too much about all the years they have left to accomplish things and not enough about the fact that once they die, that’s it.

As depressing as this may be, it is nevertheless realistic. We’re still in high school, and our lives are still flexible. I hope that anyone who reads this will stop and take a second to consider where their lives are going, because that may make a world of a difference.