What Should I Do With My Life?

Since the beginning of the year I feel like my mind has been constantly in motion, churning over potential options for my future. With the passing of graduation and most recently my nursing boards, there is a new urgency to figure out my next move. I have given thought to everything from returning to Alaska, to nursing positions in Michigan, to rafting in Colorado, to nursing positions on the west coast, to studying abroad. I declined an offer to work in Alaska again, which also came with a hefty pay raise, to leave the door open for other opportunities. From searching I have found these other opportunities are few and far in between and highly sought after. These tireless hours of application and cover letter productions leave me feeling frustrated and hopeless.

In nursing school I always pictured my dream job at the end of the road, then that transformed into at least having a job, which then transformed into me desperately looking and applying for any position. I do not want to settle.

Last night engaging in another session of Google job searches, I inquired of the mighty search engine: "What should I do with my life?"

Google rewarded my efforts with a NPR article from a few years ago; you can read the whole article here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=896041

The NPR reporter interviews Po Bronson, who spent two years asking 900 people the same question I had posed then authored a book of the same title. Bronson discussed how most people approach this question with one eye open and one eye closed because we are afraid, then without exploring those fears we allow them to limit us. Like a man at night searching for lost keys only under the street lamp-we narrow our chances of finding what we want.

Bronson discusses how we make decisions from the presumptions we have about the world but often those presumptions are untrue, here are four examples:

(1) That money is the shortest route to freedom.

(2) That we can think (or analyze) our way to an answer of where we belong.

(3) That we are autonomous from the environment that surrounds us.

(4) That our biggest obstacles are external, rather than internal.

After reading these I agree with Bronson that these are the way we want the world to work rather then how it actually does.

Now where to go from here? Sitting and thinking has certainly got me nowhere.

I am just 22 years old and have barely begun to climb the foothills of decisions I will make in this life time. It is imperative to focus on what you do know-where you want to go, what you want to do, what makes you happy. I want to be outside, be challenged, work abroad, be culturally immersed, work hard physically, get a masters degree, get by the mountains or ocean...

At some point you just have to stop the late night searching and pining and head in what direction looks best at the time knowing that at any point you can stop and change directions.