I think I’ve finally learned that there isn’t a manual for how to live this life, and I’m so glad.
As much as I’ve longed for roadside signs strung out along the highway of life to blatantly point me in the direction I need to go — complete with exact calculations of how many miles I have left to travel from point A to point B, of course — I’m audibly exhaling with an approximately equal amount relief as I type out this column for you.
Maybe it’s the job search and my final semester of college coming to a close that’s got me seriously contemplating how we choose to live our lives, but I’ve always struggled with wanting to know exactly what’s next.
I think college has a way of tricking us into thinking that we can perfectly map out our lives. We know that after this year and these summer plans we’ll go back to school in the fall. And during school we (ideally) have our daily rhythms. For four solid years almost everything is scheduled and planned in advanced. We get really good at this (once again, ideally) and essentially master the art of carefully crafting and organizing our lives.
But rather than developing a sort of carpal tunnel syndrome about life and school, I think it’s good to practice flexibility. It gives us room to breathe. It gives us new ideas. And it is the one thing that can save us from ending up somewhere we didn’t really want to go after all — or worse, missing something we actually really wanted but didn’t know until it was too late.
Staying in tune with your desires and goals is key to being flexible because these are things that can change — and that’s completely OK. Goals aren’t things to check off on a list with a sigh of relief. Goals are things to be achieved and celebrated. So I’d say that if you can’t picture yourself dancing like a fool and screaming with joy at the end of a goal you want to complete, then perhaps a little refinement is exactly what you need. Flexibility will get you there.
Just when you think you’ve covered all of your bases, taken everything into consideration and figured it all out, something or someone will come along and give you something new to think about. I’m learning to love this about life, and I know it starts with embracing flexibility.
From what I’ve experienced and what I’ve been told, the world is much bigger and more complex than what I see on a daily basis, and I think you would agree. It’s only natural for life after our college years to get more spacious. In the meantime, I think we’d be wise to remember that and work to keep ourselves as flexible as possible.
I don’t really think the roadside signs are where we should be looking for direction — they’re just external factors that can tell us little about what’s inside of us that compelled us to drive in that direction in the first place.
April Jaynes is a senior studying journalism and anthropology. Are you freaking out about the lack of structure in your post-college days? Email April about it at aj188310@ohiou.edu.
