Everybody has choices to make in their life...but it seems that several choices have been laid before me, after spending so much time thinking about what I want to accomplish, and how to accomplish it. I have discarded many, added some of mine, missed some entirely due to hesitation. And life goes on, while I stagnate, trying to make a decision.
I don't want to say what the choices are, not just yet...I'm not entirely comfortable with telling people even what I want to do, let alone discussing how I could do it, because I feel like most of the people in my life have wanted me to turn away and give up. And while I understand the reasoning behind the advice, while I can see that it is one way to approach my situation and still enjoy life...I just can't say that it's the way I would enjoy. And, frankly...a certain person doesn't want me to let go, either. That guarantees that I would regret my decision, if I did. I don't like to give up, and I'm stubborn as a mule. I think Liz finds this annoying, but I'm not sure.
And it's more than that I want this particular goal...more than that I need to achieve it, or something similar to it, for what I want out of life. But the other person involved wants, maybe even needs, me to achieve this goal as well. Since it's impossible to know the future, neither of us can say how things will turn out. The best we can do is to go with what feels right, and hope that the gods didn't see fit to give us a broken instinct.
But that's not what is bugging me. It's the how that's bugging me, more than the what. And I am seeing too many options to be able to decide if one way would work better than another.
How often in life have you made a truly life-changing decision. And I mean the kind of decision that really completely changed where you would end up in life. Not just "Oh, should I date that person or this person?" or "Which college should I pick?" because those don't cause you completely miss out and lose something from your life, in return for something else. Whichever college you picked, you still went to college, you still worked towards your degree as hard as you would have at the other one. Whichever person you dated, you still dated somebody, and you still ended up having a great or a terrible time, and you still ended up taking things to the next step with one specific person eventually. Neither decision really changes all that much about where your life goes, and there's a million choices like that in our lives.
But what about the big ones? I don't want to give away my thoughts on this just yet. I'm not so comfortable doing so, especially with certain people in my household having access to this blog. But I can assure you this is one of the bigger decisions, because depending on which I choose...it will lead to a drastic change in my life, including a change of locale. It would mean leaving what I have known for my whole life and abandoning it for good. It does include a choice of college, but that's not the important part, because the choice here, if I think only about my career, is obvious.
But...would I be happy, prioritizing my career in making my choice? Does the road to happiness truly focus entirely on a successful job, and making lots of money?
I have friends who are now married, even having kids, and they're no older than me. Sometimes a bit younger. On the one hand, I bet they are very happy with their lives. I know I'm not happy with where I am, especially considering that I've done some back-stepping. I want to go back to moving forward. But even if I HAD been moving forward all this time, most of my old friends are going through their lives far faster than I would have. And I have to wonder...not so much who would have been happier, or who is happier. But I have to wonder if it's really worth it all, to rush through life, as society is pushing us to do, and to take the designated path. Specifically the path that my parents are believing I should take. (I should add that I almost automatically throw out any life choice that originates from them)
It doesn't help that I've read novels where boys become men at around the age of 16, whereas in modern society, we are considered men at 18 and don't drink until 21. That I've read about 15-year-old boys marching off to war, being called the King in the North, and routing entire armies with their strategems. Reading about how intellectual they are, about how charismatic and strong-willed they are, at such a young age.
Granted, these is fiction that I'm reading. But I look around me...and though it's not on the same level, I see people of those younger age groups as sometimes being quite intelligent. To the point that I feel envious, and wish I'd been like them at their age. I see people that I once considered my peers years ahead of me, making all the "right" choices and certainly being happy with how their lives are going. In places I hadn't imagined myself for another half a decade, give or take a year. Am I maybe setting my milestones to cautiously? I look to people who are younger than me, and think...that they're very close to where I am, mentally, spiritually, intellectually. Maybe not as far as society is concerned...I've been to college, they haven't. But I think you see where I'm getting at: I feel slow. And I can't help but hate it, though I know it's silly to do so.
Sometimes, when you really want something...you have to risk things for it....you have to struggle against hardship, and struggle through whatever pain may come along the way. Is something really worth acquiring if you don't have to fight for it? Do I want to give up the easier road, the safer road...admittedly the slower road...or do I want to take so long to get somewhere, that my destination no longer exists?
I guess this is about setting my priorities straight. And I can't help but think that the perfect job, the perfect path towards getting the job that you want...isn't what should be top priority. Is your job, financial security, what life is about? Is putting career first really the way a person should want to live his life?
I know people who gave up working, gave up their career, in order to help care for the family. To help raise the kids, and be there for them in every way possible. It's still working, it's just different. And I see people who made the opposite choice, though often for a lot of the same reasons. And I wonder if there even is a right choice.
I've made tough choices before. One of the toughest I ever made was to move back in with my parents, when I realized I was headed to financial ruin, with no way to stop it on my own. Not while having to pay for rent, food, and transportation all at once. Not while lacking my own car. I look back at the choice NOW, and see that I did have the option of staying, but it would have meant to struggle and fight, to make some sacrifices, to push myself forward along a path strewn with rubble and sharp rocks. Did I mention that you walk through life barefoot? It's true.
I can honestly say now that I regret not having taken that harder road. But does that mean one choice was wrong, and the other right? I don't think I made the wrong choice. I just think I should have made the other choice, cause I would have felt better about the choice. That doesn't mean the choice I did make was wrong...just different.
I am cursed, as I see it, with the ability to see things from beyond my own viewpoint. I can put myself in your shoes, and understand why you believe what you believe. Why you did what you did. Rather than just saying to myself, "I would never do that," I see why YOU did it, and can agree it was a good choice for you.
As a result of this, it is easy for me to see the differences between tough choices and agree with both of them. Such as the example above that most mothers are forced to make: family vs job. I can understand both choices, and see the good in both choices. I don't see either one has inherently right, or wrong. Just different. And both lead to good things AND bad things, in different ways. If presented with that choice myself, if I were a father needing to make that choice, I don't know which I would make.
And so in the choices I have laid out before me, as the paths I can take to move forward, rather than continuing to stagnate, I can see the good in either decision. And I don't know which "benefit" I really want to go with. I already know what my own family would say, because they are decidedly close-minded and narrow in thought. I already know what my closer friends would say, because I know they want what's best for me, and don't want me to risk losing everything...what little that "everything" represents, at least.
But in the end, what matters is what I say...because it's my life choice, and it changes the way I will live my life. The problem is...I don't know what to say to myself. While I certainly do listen to what other people have to say, I can't seem to decide what it is that I say...and I don't want to blindly pick a road. I was educated to do better than that.
What it may come down to in the end, is which decision I would regret the most. Though many of you may not like to hear it, I think I would regret the riskier choice the most. It's a choice even bigger than deciding to move back in with my parents....cause this new choice involves reversing the old one. Involves finally moving back out, something I've wanted from day one.
Heh...people say you do crazy things when you're in love. Are they inherently bad things, though? Or just illogical?
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