Dear everyone and anyone,
It’s time for me to let off a little bit of steam that has been building for a long, long time and I am sure there are many of you out there will have felt exactly how I do. “What do you want to do when you leave school? What are you going to do in the future? What career do you want to have? What are your plans?” Sound familiar, thought so, these questions are ones that are asked daily, they’re the perfect way to start a conversation but why exactly does everyone seem to ask me the one person who seems to never have an answer. I don’t know what I want to do with my life and where I am going to end up in five years let alone ten. Is it really that bad that I still remain clueless about my future, I didn’t think so but then everyone seem to get all obsessive over it. There is so much pressure from everyone but that doesn’t help it just makes me ashamed to answer, feeling that I am about to be judge for replying, “I don’t know!”
I suppose I wouldn’t feel bad if I only had to answer that question once but I can’t seem to escape from it over and over again the same question and the same answer. It makes me feel like some sort of failure for not being able to give an answer, especially when everyone else around me seem to have it all worked out, their whole lives are planned perfectly, they know exactly where they are going to end up and how they are going to get there. That’s when it starts to hurt listening to one person’s life story after another even though it hasn’t even happened and you can’t even say what is going to happen next week. You start to feel all sorts sad, confused and disappointed in yourself. It’s as if you’re in the middle of a race but you can’t seem to get past the starting line.
People then give you this sort of, “you seriously have no idea,” shocked, disappointed look which does nothing but make you feel worse and kind of angers you at the same time. These are the people who generally will either start to do what they think is help you or try to nag you into a decision both are equally annoying and make you feel like you have committed the crime of the century by not knowing. Just so you know it’s not and it really irritates me when people act like it is. Also there attempts at helping just feels like their taunting you and makes no difference if anything it makes things worse as you become so stressed out you just can’t think let alone make the kind of decision that is going to affect your life.
This letter is not your usual complaint letter but I feel it’s a topic that needs to be complained about. People should not judge others for not knowing what their future will bring them, you don’t have to make up a timeline for your life and people shouldn’t force you to. They should support you no matter what and sometimes you need to grow up, live a bit more and learn a few more lessons before you know what you want to do in life that makes you happy. Thanks for reading my letter and I hope you will take it consideration the next time you ask someone, “Hey what do you want to do with your life?” and they respond with, “I don’t know,” that instead of looking at them like their some sort of crazy person or just said something completely ridiculous, just smile and say, “Well whatever and wherever you end up it doesn’t matter as long as your happy there and you don’t need to decide now you have your whole life to work it out!”
Yours sincerely,
Sara Burr