I was going to say, guys, being 22 is harder than it looks, but then I felt a little ridiculous. No, I don't have a mortgage or five kids, or even a dog, but at least you're past the part of life where you had to make decisions about buying the house, having the kids or adopting the puppy. It's just work now. The decision is done, the commitment is made. I find I like my life better when the decision making is done. Sure, there's a certain thrill and element of intrigue added to your life when you're balancing a giant question mark on your head, but giant question marks get heavy.
Right now, I feel like I'm balancing ten question marks, one on top of the other. I'm not even sure if I'm supposed to have any of them on my head, which just adds an eleventh question. What do I need to have figured out right now? Should I continue taking grad school classes? Should I try to get certified for additional areas of teaching like 5th grade or gifted/talented? What kind of work makes me feel alive? How big of a factor should my personal desires be in the decisions I make? Should I just pack up my stuff and head to Africa to fulfill a corner of "go and make disciples"?
So. Many. Questions.
I want to do the right thing, but what's the right thing? A great thing about living in America, having a college degree and being a Sunshine is you have heaps of options. (Being a Sunshine just means you aren't too geographically limited and for some reason you believed your parents when they told you that you could be anything you wanted.) I could be an event coordinator, a children's minister, a teacher, a camp administrator, a waitress, a missionary… the list goes on with many variations.
In all those situations I could live out God's good news by loving him, loving people, and using my life as a Jesus sign post. Does it really matter what I choose to be? Would it be a waste to not use my college degree in the way it was intended? Would it be unwise to keep traveling and doing short term "fun" jobs because I eventually want to stay put somewhere and that has to start some time? Or should I travel and do "fun" jobs while I can?
This seems to me like an approach/approach conflict. (Thank you, Dr. W for making me pay attention in General Psychology.) All that means is you have to make a decision between two good things. Do I want brownies or do I want ice cream? Do I want a climbing Don Juan rose, or a star jasmine vine? Gouda or brie? Hereford or Jersey? Granny Smith or Pink Lady? You get the point.
I'm thinking tri-focals might be a good idea - a vision for the present, a vision for the near future (5-10 year range), and a vision for eternity. If I were some kind of inspirational speaker, this is the point in my rousing speech where I would launch into my point about goal making. I'm not some kind of inspirational speaker. I'm just a girl who's 22 who's trying to sort out what in the world she's doing with her life, or if she even needs to know.
Much love,
Little Miss Sunshine, who is trying to match her outputs with her inputs when it comes to life questions
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