Wake me up when it’s all over
When I’m wiser and I’m older
All this time I was finding myself
And I didn’t know I was lost
Avicii and Aloe Blacc – “Wake Me Up”
I almost feel ashamed to admit that I still don’t know what I really want to do with my life. Like when someone asks a 15 or 16 year old what they want to do and scoff if they said they don’t know; what would that someone say to me?
But is it unfair to ask a 15 year old to choose then what career they would choose? To make such a choice so early in their life, at a time when they haven’t even experienced life? How are they supposed to really make a decision like that?
But that’s how we do things now. I remember at secondary school that I had to choose a path of sciences or business. I wanted to do business subjects, but wanted to do physics and math, so I had to choose sciences and leave the business out. Not that I mind now though, but who knows what it would have been like had I been able to do both.
And that the thing, we never know! We could never foretell the future, so asking youths to make a decision that seems so permanent at the time, can’t be the right thing to do. We should offer them the choice, but also the way to change their minds if that choice is not right.
How many people are living soulless, unhappy lives now because of that choice they made so long ago? I see so many status updates on social media for people living for the weekend, and dreading Mondays, it makes me wonder sometimes whether work can be enjoyed.
Work can be enjoyed. There are quite a few times where I’ve enjoyed doing something and it didn’t matter how hard I worked or whether it was paid for, I was just happy doing it. Perhaps then, it’s not that I need to find something different, but to find the good in what I’m doing right now and be happy with it.
As I’ve grown, my needs and values have changed. What I wanted ten years ago is much different now.
You can find happiness in what you are doing now, but to find meaning and purpose, you have to go much deeper. You have to ask yourself the really difficult questions, and be willing to make the choices that come with them.
Making a choice when you were 15 years old may have defined a path, but it doesn’t define the journey, or the destination. Fortunately, one of the advantages of life is the ability to change course and choose your own path, no matter your age; a path that will alter your final destination.
Live for the journey, not the destination.