Graduating from college has been one of the most intense experiences of my life. Of course, it is a happy occasion - marking all of the hard work and achievement of the past four years. But it is also sad to leave behind the antics and the friendships that comprised such an exciting era. Reflecting back on my life thus far and the experiences that have made me who I am today brings up both positive and negative emotions - but most of all it forces me to think more deeply about what it implies for my future. I have always identified myself virtually exclusively as a student - and why wouldn't I? - at age 22 I have been in some form of educational institution for the past 20 years of my life. Really - my mom put me into preschool when I was two years old.
Especially in the final months of senior year, I became more and more aware of how I had let the comfort of structure and routine lull me into auto-pilot. I was doing things without any deeper consideration of why I was doing them. I was completely uninspired by my classes, jaded about all of the privileges I once appreciated every day. I felt like I had lost touch with myself and with the things that truly thrilled and inspired me. I realized I had been living and evaluating my life on other people's terms, rather than my own. Somewhere along the way, I lost touch with my most valuable guide - my own intuition.
This time, my intuition was speaking up louder than ever. As everyone else's job search was in full swing, I just couldn't bring myself to fill out an application. I am confident that I could get as good a job as any - but just because I could doesn't necessarily mean I should. Especially after the past 8 years: 4 at an intensely competitive private college-prep high school (Lakeside), and 4 more at a similarly competitive Ivy League university (Penn), I don't know if I could feel more burnt out. Why would I spend any more time competing for a "prize" that I don't even want?
What is clear, then, is that I need to do a whole lot of soul-searching to figure out exactly what it is I want to do with my life so that I will be able to ultimately pursue a course that leaves me happy and truly fulfilled. As of right now, I'm not sure exactly what the soul-searching will entail, or where it will take me. And the truth is, not getting a job is a lot scarier than you would think. But this fear of confronting the great unknown is the very reason I know I need to take my so-called "Vision Quest."
In the year to come, I want to work, live, and travel doing things I would never otherwise do, seeing things I would never otherwise see. I want to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience the world to the fullest. As of right now, (in tentative chronological order), this includes Morocco, Turkey, India, Southeast Asia, and possibly South Africa.
Stay tuned to see how my "experiment in human intuition" plays out...
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