Collegiate Times

Image: 2013-01-23 20:49:09

Welcome back to Blacksburg everyone.

I hope you had a great winter break and that, hopefully, time away has caused you to forget why I offended you in 2012.

If I did offend you at some point though, I can’t promise it won’t happen again; that wasn’t my New Year’s Resolution.

Over the past month, I think I have set the record for the most boring winter break in the history of our fine university.

Now, there are thousands of students here that will describe their break as doing “nothing but lying around in bed for a month,” but that’s all hyperbole. Unlike them, however, I literally sat in bed for a month.

You see, I had surgery on my ankle the day after I got home for break, and I had to elevate my foot for pretty much my entire time home. From Dec. 21 to Jan. 16, I got out of bed exactly five times — three of which were for doctor's appointments.

And in that 27 days, I sat in bed and watched Scooby Doo and Spongebob and played Pokemon on my cell phone — yeah, I was that bored. Apparently around day 14 in bed, you revert back to the nine-year-old version of yourself.

The issue with all of this is that instead of using that month to do some soul searching and figure out what I wanted to do with my life, I pretended like my biggest worry in the world was what would happen on the next episode of Dragon Ball Z.

This attitude has only further convoluted my idea of what will happen upon graduating. In the last six months, I’ve gone from knowing I wanted to be a journalist, to knowing I wanted to be in advertising, to thinking about sales and finally settling on “I’ll do literally whatever pays me the most money because money is awesome.”

Topping it all off was the thought that popped into my head this week that I want to be a lawyer because I watched “Suits” and thought, “Hey, I can do that.” On Wednesday, I even bought a book to study for the LSATs.

To sum up my life right now, my brain is treating my future career as a flavor of the month. I’m half expecting to wake up tomorrow with the desire to be a fireman (which could prove to be a very difficult profession for me, seeing as I’m in a wheelchair).

There is one thing that can bring me solace, though: I’m not alone. I’ve always thought I knew what I wanted to do after graduating, but now that I’m clueless, I realize it’s not a big deal.

I’m one of the more motivated people I know, and when I actually decide on something, I’ll be damn good at it.

So for everyone out there who’s like me, here’s one thing I think we should all do as our real New Year’s Resolution.

Over the next month, think about what you’re actually good at and figure out your priorities (where you want to work, how important money is, etc.). Once you do that, find someone to pay you for those skills.

If you need to get another degree, do it, but don’t even think about paying for more schooling unless you’re ready to commit to that profession.

For me, my skills include writing, arguing semantics and being incredibly handsome ... and humble.

It sounds simple when it’s put like that, but I think that’s how we should look at it. After 12 years of grade school and at least four years of college, we’ve begun to over think it.

If we spend the next 30 days trying to simplify things, maybe it’ll come to us.

Good luck to you all. 

A version of this article appeared in the Jan 24 issue of the Collegiate Times.