The word for how I am feeling: anxious. I am not alone in this, but sometimes it feels like I am more stressed than those around me. Or at least they are hiding it better. At this point in my life I'm starting to wonder if I'm ever not going to be stressed. In my ethics class we were asked what we needed in life to be happy. Most people (including myself) said things like a career, a doctorate, or financial stability. Of course as I said it, I didn't believe it. There is always something more. When I was in high school, I just wanted to graduate and then I would be happy. In junior college I just wanted to get into a CSU and then I would be happy. Now I feel like if I get into grad school, then I will be happy. I know this isn't true though. I will get to grad school and think, once I get my doctorate I will be happy. Then once I get my doctorate it will be opening my own practice. Then it will be traveling. Then I will have kids and my worries about school will surface again in their lives. Once they get though high school. Once they get through college. It's a never ending cycle of "once this happens then..."
I think my problem is my priorities. Happiness is not something that is constant, it is always dependent upon something. Contentment, however, can be a steady thing. If something doesn't happen, and I don't get that happiness I was longing for, will I be depressed or can I learn to be content and move on. I remember freaking out one night about the future as my anxiety over school and the unknown built up. Then a friend of mine stopped me and said "why are you so worried? Don't you realize that you're only 21. You can still do whatever you want. You don't have to have it all figured out." Bam! Right there was something wonderful. The idea that I don't have control of the future, but I shouldn't be worried about it. If one thing doesn't work out, there are endless opportunities to try something else. I can travel, I can work a crappy job, I can try different career, I can go to grad school and study, I can do anything (well not anything, but lots of things). My future isn't a single path, it is a tree with every decision branching off down a new way towards different choices. If one thing goes wrong it isn't the end of the line. I'm not taking a long walk off a short pier, I'm wandering in the woods. And no matter what happens or where I go, I know that my life is meaningful. God doesn't make mistakes, and I know I am on Earth for a reason. Even if it isn't what I expect, I trust Him. If I were to die tomorrow I know that my life had a purpose. That is the point of everything. Whatever we are suffering through, it is eventually going to end and we will join God and never have to suffer again. Everything is temporary on Earth. But what we do can have long effect on the lives of others, and we can help bring God's kingdom to those around us. It is comforting to view my life not as in what I am failing or succeeding at doing for myself, but for God. I feel as if I'm rambling on and figuring out my own thoughts as I'm writing this so please forgive me if you don't get the point I'm trying to make. I'm just trying to understand the perspectives of my future. When I see it as something I have control over, and that when I fail I become a failure, I get stressed and depressed. But when I trust that God has great plans for my life and whatever happens in the end, He loves me and will bring me home, I can rest knowing that my happiness is not the goal of life, because if it was I would never reach it.
