It’s been almost a month since my winter break began, and I can concretely say that I have accomplished absolutely nothing of substance. I have never been at a point in my life where I’ve had nothing solid to work toward, and I have no idea what to do. In middle school and high school, I was driven by competition and the desire to get into a good college. I wanted to win debate competitions, perform well in math competitions, and win the national Science Bowl. I wanted good grades to have a high GPA. In my free time, I could focus my time on improving in these areas.
Now that I am in college, the same no longer applies. I no longer participating in competitions, which are much sparser in the collegiate level anyway. My activities only provide short-term motivation and are relatively inconsequential in the long term. My main driver over freshman and sophomore year–landing a summer internship–has already been completed. Now, I’m only left with obscure goals like preparing for a career, managing my financials, or planning my future–none of which provide a crystallized image of what I should be doing.
For the first time in my life, I feel like I have nothing to do. I have a ton of options–learning new career skills, playing violin, doing more art-related activities–but none of them seem particularly attractive. Moreover, I wouldn’t consider any of them to be priorities. However, I also don’t know what my priorities should be. I’ve put myself in a limbo, where I have options that are better than what I have been doing–nothing–but I don’t particularly want to pick any of the options I have either.
This thought has also sparked more about what lies ahead. Once I’ve graduated from university, I no longer have to worry about grades. I’ll have a job which becomes more routine and longer-term than anything I have partaken in before, and I wonder my ambitions might look like then. I know my priorities will shift as I age, from school and grades to a career and family, but there will be an in-between period (including now) where I am unclear about the path forward. During school, I was anxious about school. During break where I have nothing to be anxious about, I’m anxious about nothing.
There isn’t a takeaway here. I literally have no idea what I’m doing. I’m hoping that once I do know what I’m doing, that I’ll back on this piece and learn how I got pointed back in the right direction. In the meantime, I guess I’ll just have to roam around in my thoughts and look within.