If we look deeply at all our lives it’s clear that uncertainty is everywhere.
It’s easy to find it in several aspects of our daily routine: from the smaller decisions, like asking yourself which t-shirt you should wear in the morning, to more important ones, such as choosing a university. We often associate this feeling with something negative–something that generates anxiety and stress. Thus we try to avoid it because the feeling it leaves us with is uncomfortable and hard to endure. Making big decisions might be intimidating as you constantly fear making the wrong choice.
Many thoughts are born in our minds and make us feel unconfident and sometimes also vulnerable. What happens if I make the wrong decision? What if I choose something that I’m not really passionate about? Or worse, something that doesn’t make me happy? What will I do if I lose years of my life working a job or studying things that don’t suit the person I am? What am I supposed to do at that point?
We may try our best to repress those thoughts but it saddens me to admit that it’s quite impossible–on the other side, what one can do is try to control them. I know it’s not that easy but it’s a skill we can learn and improve constantly, and it is exactly thanks to this change of attitude that one can find the positives in these weird feelings.
My Perspective
From my experience, even though I don’t have all the answers because it’s the first time I have to face my uncertainty about the future and I’m still learning to control it and not be overwhelmed, I feel free to say that it’s not impossible.
The best advice I could give is to try, have new experiences, and impose yourself to do things that usually you wouldn’t do. In this way maybe it would be easier to discover new aspects of who you are.
For example this summer I went to Oxford for a boot camp, where I understood how university life is and if I’d like to live in this kind of context in the future. I’ve always been sure about going to uni–it’s never been an option for me–so I’ve never doubted if it was for real what I wanted to do, but this experience helped me to be sure that it was exactly what would fit me in the next few years.
Beside this. I think it was a wonderful experience because doing it at this age, even though I have two years left of high school, made me conscious of what choice I’ll have to make. I was really anxious about it. I was uncertain and also scared of what I would choose, but after this week spent in a place completely different from mine, in a context that led me to expose myself, I changed my mind. I’m not saying I’m no more afraid or worried about that but I see it in a more clear vision. I see this uncertainty of what I’ll be as an advantage. It can be a benefit because it forces one to consider different options, one needs to be creative–there’s not just a single path one can follow. I realized I have the possibility to be the maker of my future, of my life.
Of course, I knew this before: my parents always told me that I could choose whatever I wanted, but before I thought that the university I’d choose would determine my future and that what I’d study at uni would be my future life job. But now I am no longer convinced about that. At the moment I’m sure I’m going to choose to study something I really like, even though I’m still really uncertain about my future job and honestly I’m happy with the idea of not knowing exactly what I’ll do for the rest of my life. Personally, I get bored easily so having this type of uncertainty in my life gives me the freedom to consider different options, be more open to change, and be more flexible.
It also prepares you to face changes and unexpected events, to deal with uncomfortable situations, and it teaches you adaptability. Last but not least it gives you the opportunity to grow, both your life experience and you as a person.
Some takeaways
- Don’t think you are too young, or it’s too early to make new experiences or to start looking around and thinking about your future; it’s better to take your time and do it slowly so you’ll be sure that you don’t rush into anything.
- Expose yourself, don’t be afraid to show your real personality and who you are, don’t be shy, try to put yourself into different contexts to see how you react to situations outside of your comfort zone.
- Consider every option, don’t exclude anything, even though it’s something you’re really passionate about. just because you don’t think it could be a valid option.
- Calm down, if you choose a path and then you realize it’s wrong for you, change it and try something different; you won’t have wasted your time, you will only have added a new lesson to your life experience.
In Conclusion
We are living our lives for the first time so it’s normal to not know what to do or what to choose for our career. The important action to be taken is not to be passive in front of this but to react to it. Try, explore, make mistakes, and experience different paths because what I’ve learned lately is that we don’t lose time if we choose to study something and after we end up working with something completely unrelated. Feel free to be uncertain, at the end of the day everything, from the biggest experience to the smallest mistakes, teaches us something and nothing is a loss, you only need to change your perspective on it.