If you read my blog on a semi-regular basis, you’ll probably have noticed that it’s been nearly six months since my last post. This wasn’t intentional, and I will go back and kind of back-blog about the end of AmeriCorps. I still have a lot to say about that experience that I’ve told family and friends and my personal journal of course, but that I haven’t shared on this blog.
But before I go back, I want to explain what I’m doing now and what has inspired me to start writing again. I am at a place in my life that I’ve never been before. I don’t know what I’m doing. You would think that it would help that everyone in my life sees me as the person who is kind of like a cat in that I will land on my feet no matter what happens. But this really doesn’t help, because it’s given me major imposter-syndrome. I assume that people in my life are only saying that to me because they’re friends and family—they kind of have to.
AmeriCorps allowed me to postpone the panicky thoughts of what to do post-college, but now that I’m not in a structured program where every second of my day is allotted for, I find myself staring down the same thing I was senior year of college. I genuinely don’t know where I will be in a few months or in a year. People older than me keep telling me this is a blessing, because one day I too will know exactly where I will be each day and with whom. There aren’t many surprises in our parents’ lives anymore. This doesn’t mean that their lives aren’t as interesting or enjoyable, but everyone wants what they can’t have, I suppose.
There is a quote from the last episode of The Office, which if you know me, you know is my favorite show. Andy’s character is surprisingly the one with the words of wisdom. He says, “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve left them.” It’s my favorite quote from the show, but it frankly scared the shit out of me when I first heard it. I am perpetually looking forward, wondering what’s next. Trying to desperately figure out a plan for every weekend, every holiday, to know where I will be for the next few years.
I think that’s why I liked school so much. You were being productive and doing what you were “supposed” to be doing, but you had little choice in the whole thing. Choice is great, psychology tells us this, but psychology also tells us that too much choice is bad. We overload ourselves by trying to find the very “best” option, when in actuality the difference between each choice is often negligible. This is why contrary to logic humans often are comforted by their decisions being made for them. I am not talking about serious decisions like the decision to have kids or to marry someone, because that argument could go down a rabbit hole with some pretty dangerous implications. I am talking about relatively benign choices.
Decisions are my greatest source of anxiety, and if you know me you’re probably nodding, because this is an understatement. I agonize over them, which is why I thrived in college, because it was 4 years where I could postpone having to make any permanent decision. I could look forward like I am prone to doing while essential keeping all options open. And yet everything comes to an end.
There was a time not too long ago where I was planning to do another AmeriCorps program, but I think not doing that program has turned out to be what I needed. It is forcing me to do the thing that I do not want to do, but that should I probably learn. I am going to explore my options, and then go forward and not look back to lament the closing of every door I’m not taking. Because whether or not something is the right decision, you will find reasons to justify your decision, making it for all intents and purposes the right one. This is because at the end of the day, humans will do what they have to do to feel good. They are creatures of comfort and will find ways to be okay with how they have chosen to live their lives, which is in itself comforting.