The Future

Being back in Moscow briefly took my mind off of certain stresses, but since then it has turned my thoughts back to things like graduation, post-graduation plans, where my life is going, etc. My internship has helped me realize that while I don’t hate translation, it usually isn’t my favorite—and that was something that I felt very strongly drawn towards at the beginning of the year when I was praying about what to do with my life. Although I love them, the other interns—some of whom know what they’re doing in life, some of whom don’t, and all of whom have varying talents and abilities and interests—often help me feel not as sure in my plans, my skills, and myself in general. (Note: this is all me, and not at all their actions. They are great.) Yesterday, a blog post by my friend Matt got me thinking about them even more. More or less he wrote about how there’s a twinge of regret that he studied something he loved and didn’t develop more marketable skills—not that studying something you love is a bad thing, but that there needs to be balance so that later you can work doing something related to what you love and not just sit around jobless or stuck in a boring job that you absolutely hate. Of course, he said it a lot more eloquently than I can right now. (If you'd like to read his post, it's right here.)

I have felt like this on and off for a while, and though to an extent I have some things figured out, I still worry. I am scared that I will pick the wrong path or am just generally unsure about what to do. I am scared that my plans won’t work out and that I will 1) be a failure and 2) not know what to do after that. I am scared that I will live without realizing some dreams because I’m just not really sure what they are. I am scared that I will end up alone, in both a romantic/future family way and in a friends/new place way. I am scared that I don’t have any marketable skills and that I hide my good qualities. On a similar strain, I worry that I can’t find the right balance, for example between being bold and being meek. I am scared that the future won’t make me happy and that I will spend the rest of my life looking back on “the good ol’ days.” I am scared that the skills that I do have, and that I felt strongly that I needed to continue to develop (like Russian or music or writing) are 1) not actually as good as I thought they were and 2) going to be fairly useless in my actual future career and 3) the scariest option—I will stop loving them or not find them meaningful anymore.

In short, the future is scary. But God has taken care of my so far, so I have faith that He will continue to do so. I only hope that He helps me access the help I need to play my part in my own future. And that someday soon all the pieces of the future start to come together and actually start making sense instead of just being this big UNKNOWN that right now devours anything after December 2013.