This is an excerpt from an essay first published on my website.
The Illusion of Having It Figured Out
When I was a child, I had my entire life meticulously mapped out with the kind of confidence only achievable employing complete ignorance of reality. My plan was simple: finish school, waltz into university, and obtain a PhD. In what? Anything, really—indeed, that is but a trivial detail, of course. Then, I’ll work at something suitably impressive, start a business, and become a multimillionaire. Easy-peasy. My career options were similarly well-defined. I would be a forensic scientist (the American TV show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation was really popular at the time). No, wait—an author. Actually, a coroner. Or perhaps an electrical engineer? Sound engineer? Psychologist? Teacher? Lawyer? No, definitely a doctor. Maybe a neurosurgeon? Game developer? An artist? Music producer? Chef? Roboticist? The list kept growing with the same energy as a child spinning in circles until they fall over, dizzy. I actually managed to tick “artist” off the list for a while (though “starving” was an unspoken prefix). Nearly became a chef too (this one I really did love) and got a diploma in teaching English. Technically, I started a business—had some online stores, freelanced for a while—and I did start a game design degree (twice). So I suppose child me would be somewhat impressed? If also confused about why I kept doing handbrake turns each year.
Now I’m thirty, and I still don’t really know what I want to do. Maybe I would rather not do anything, at least not in the hustle-culture sense that demands we monetise every semblance of a skill or Passion™ until we’ve drained every iota of joy from them. What I do know is that I want to raise children, and I do genuinely love managing a household (a sentence that would have made seventeen-year-old me stage a one-person protest), which is a sort of taboo in certain circles. But I also feel like there’s something more I’m supposed to be doing. Not in the vain, grandiose way I felt as a kid, when I just assumed I was super special like everyone told me and destined for something important (though I’m too aloof to allow crowds to applaud my brilliance). Now I realise I’m a tiny, insignificant speck in an incomprehensibly vast universe, no more cosmically important than the dust mite currently inhabiting my doormat. When I say “supposed to be doing,” I mean that nowadays I sort of think there’s a higher calling given to all of us—something that allows us to use our natural-born gifts for good, whatever those happen to be.
Here’s what I’ve figured out: nobody has anything figured out. …
Continue reading this essay where it was originally published on my website.