My name is Emily. I live in the pacific northwest, and I am twenty one years old. I have started this blog in hopes that it will be a reminder to myself of my dreams, hopes and goals for my future. I have also started it as a sort of recognition for people out there, like me, who have absolutely. no. idea. what they want to “do with their life”. So I guess you could say its half for me, and half for you, if you’re reading this and nodding your head, or laughing to yourself because you know exactly what I’m talking about. This blog will also be a sort of timeline, or function in keeping track of how I got to wherever it is I am going in life.
Is this what they call a quarter life crisis?
In my adolescence I was always so steadfast on what I wanted to “do with my life”. Although, since about age ten I’ve gone through probably twenty different, “Mom, Dad, I’m going to be (insert profession).” Despite the ever changing profession goals/ideas, I’ve always been so sure that that one thing I chose and mulled over for about a month or two was what I wanted to do. I’ve been quite unwavering. Until I took a class on it in school. Then I realized that it was too hard (environmental science – I loathe math), didn’t pay enough (park ranger, painter, writer), or my heart just wasn’t in it (nursing, psychology, you name it).
It wasn’t until within the past six months that I found out that I wasn’t exactly living my life for myself. In fact I wasn’t at all living for myself. I was duped by trying to please everyone around me, and thought I was actually pleasing myself and fulfilling my own life goals. Needless to say, my outlook on my life’s purpose, if that’s what you want to call it, has improved significantly within the past six months. The only problem is that I can’t decide on one “purpose”. I pick three or four, and can’t choose because they all are equally enticing, or have something the other doesn’t.
After figuring out that indeed, I can live my own life for myself and be completely happy without thinking of pleasing others’ wishes, I had a little, teensy tiny breakdown moment. At a little over a month until my twenty second birthday, I was finally understanding and coming to grips with the blatant fact that I am going to have to do something to generate money to live.
This is where you hashtag first world problems.
Thus, these trials and tribulations I’ve recently gone through in my life have led me to one set of questions that pop into my head, frequently, on a daily basis:
Does one need a “profession”?
Has society completely brainwashed me into thinking that I need to do any single “profession” to survive?
If I do, does it have to be one profession, or can I create some sort of modern day renaissance woman of myself and accomplish multiple things, in order to create a life of peace for myself?
Hand Forged Solitude 