Non-Decision Making

Today is well and truly autumnal. I would say pushing on winter actually, I've been curled in a coffee shop for the past  3 hours, trying to write an essay, but only achieving reading Glamour magazine and internet window shopping. But all of the people watching did get me a-thinking, and the result is this little blog post from a piece of my mind.

Dolphin trainer, actress, hairdresser, cryptographer, surgeon, teacher, journalist, makeup artist, lawyer. To the naked eye (anyone but myself) these professions may seem like they have nothing in common whatsoever. But they do. They all have a link, and that link, happens to be me. In chronological order, at some point in my life I have intended to pursue these careers. From the 8 year old me who was obsessed with dolphins, enough so to win myself a Blue Peter badge with my dolphin poem, to the 20 year old me who is obsessed with Suits and figures an A Level in Law is enough to determine I like it enough to pursue it. In fact, most of these professions are consistent in their unrealistic-ness, but 15 year old Alice was absolutely not about to let her D's in Biology and Chemistry stop her from becoming a surgeon after watching 5 series of Grey's Anatomy.

To follow this trend of flip flapping to and from when discussing future prospects, I also actually applied to 10 Universities. I applied for Journalism at 5, freaked out, moved to Italy and reapplied again. This time for English. And then I went to a University open day, accidentally jumped on the back of what I thought was an accommodation tour, and ended in a Politics and International Relations lecture. Turns out I liked it, because two years later and I'm halfway through that degree. 

Believe it or not, I'm not actually moaning. There is a moral to these examples of my life traumas, and primarily, it is that I am happy. Going into your twenties, people start to ask questions, dreaded questions, what do you want to do when you leave University? Are you applying for internships? Will you move back home when you complete your degree? And these questions start to sound daunting. They slowly crawl into your lives, until you think you're the only person drowning in a sea of self-assured graduates. Well, let me be the one to tell you, you are not the only person feeling like this.

Most of us spend the first 18 years of our lives being told we're not old enough. Not old enough to do this, not mature enough to do that. And then, in the space of three years, you feel like you should have your whole life figured out. But that is not a reality. Some people are 100% those people- the girl in the flat across the hall who has three internships and a secured graduate job at the end of her university life. The guy up the road who accidentally bumped into the CEO of Goldman Sachs at a party and was offered an internship after a fifteen minute discussion. But the majority of us, we are not those people.

This doesn't only apply to university graduates. Some of my friends, have decided uni wasn't the right path for them, to which I completely applaud them. It's hard going against the tide when everyone else is packing their lives up into their bags. Some of them are travelling, others working as waitresses or in shops, and for the majority of them, this isn't their forever job. It's not what they want to be doing in 20 years time or maybe not ever 5 years time. But that is totally okay.

It is totally okay to have no life plan when you're 20. Or when you're 23. It is so much easier to make those mistakes now, than in 20 years when you have a family to support you.  Sometimes, the best goal is no goal. So take your time, find what you want to do, fall into jobs and out of jobs and eventually, I am sure you will find the right direction for you.

Ciao for Now!
x