Today, I met with my academic advisor and another professor to discuss plans for my next three years in school and for graduate school. As I had these discussions, I was able to answer life altering questions with answers that appear to be permanent, and they are what I want with complete certainty. It makes me wonder...
How do I know what I want in life? As they asked questions about things I wanted and how I intended to achieve them, I had no doubt in my answers. I will graduate with my undergraduate in three years with three degrees and honors. I will then move immediately to graduate school. I had no doubt in my mind that taking these risks and making these decisions are exactly what I want in life. I've taken all the right steps there. Within my first semester at school, I have glowing references, and I have dipped my feet into everything I need to to build my resume.
While I am thrilled that I am not stressing about making decisions, I question if I am complacent. Don't get me wrong, none of my goals by any means are a way of me settling. I am ambitious and my goals are incredibly high. However, am I losing something by already knowing what I want, and being settled?
As the conversation developed, all I had left was one decision to make. Do I go to graduate school for gothic architecture, or modern/contemporary art? Gothic architecture is fascinating to me in its developments and grandiosity, but I hate that it is already done and settled. Everything is already known and understood about it. Modern and contemporary art are beautiful to me in that everything is in progress and undecided and still has questions that I can answer. I am basically deciding between stability or adventure.
Then I realized, the decision of stability or adventure is basically my life at this point. By going through my undergraduate quickly and going straight to grad school, there is little stability in that I will be younger than everyone else. I am also studying art history, which is possibly the biggest gamble I could have. Everything I'm doing in life is an adventure. I'm studying art history with little stability, I am constantly making new friends and evolving socially, I'm dating (which is the weirdest thing...ever...), I'm learning things that I never thought I would, and everything is all new.
I'm learning that adventure is stable idea. By committing your life to an adventure, you are committing yourself to the stable idea that nothing is consistent. You are committing to the constant change that life brings. As contradictory as it all sounds, it really quite makes sense.
As for me? I'm happy being stable and committed to adventure...
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