We all worry. We worry about being good enough, being all we want to be, be- ing ourselves — whoever that is.
Eventually we’ll all leave Blue Valley for good and go on to do something more — maybe less — but usually more. We’ve grown up being told if we try hard enough, we can do anything we want to do.
But there are so many options and so many obstacles.
I want to travel and be cultured and work somewhere I love and make good money and fall in love and have a family.
But, Christ, there’s not enough time in life it seems.
Granted, I’ve put this pressure on myself, as many of us have, but I want to do so much.
I want to help people, and I want to learn. I don’t want to look back and wish I’d done more, worked more, experienced more, lived more.
We don’t want to live mundane lives — maybe we don’t want to make the same mistakes our parents or siblings made.
We don’t want to be stuck in this rut of waking up, rushing to work, working in some office for eight hours, grabbing dinner on the way home, sleeping and repeating that for 40-some years.
That sounds horrible, and yet so many people have that life. They seem happy.
But what if we look back on that life we had with that person we met in college and that job that was good enough and wonder if we did everything we should have.
If we settled. If we would be happier had we taken time off.
If, if, if.
I want to be on the fast track to success and making money — yet, as a journalist, I doubt six digits are in the salary future for me.
I don’t want to be stuck, but I want to be stuck to the right thing. To the right job, to the right person, to the right state.
I haven’t quite figured out how to avoid getting stuck to what, in years, I may wish was different, but I know we all have to try.
After college, we can’t settle.
We can’t assume we can’t do anything more than what we’ve done. We can’t be satisfied with what we’ve seen generations before us do.
If we do, we’re stuck.
And if we look back on life and feel we’ve been stuck and dragged down by what we thought we couldn’t do, we might not have the time to change it.