Finding the Velocity

Along with this blog, I recently decided to undertake a big project to help me figure out where I’m headed in life over the next while. After working abroad and then coming back to the states to spend nearly a year at Starbucks, then back abroad and back again, I’ve grown tired of the constant moving and the total lack of stability from year to year. I haven’t lived in the same home for more than a year at a time since I was in High School; I haven’t stayed focused on what I wanted to do for a long-term career hardly at all since elementary school, if ever.

I’m a smart guy and I know it. I breezed my way through my early years of school, stressing out more about the drama of high school than focusing at all on my studies while still earning nearly a full ride to a fantastic university in a challenging new program in their engineering program. Without a minute of studying for either the SAT or ACT I scored well; with a great effort of studying for the GRE, I scored in the 97^th percentile. This isn’t a vehicle for bragging; I’m just trying to paint a picture.

But for all of my supposed intelligence, I’ve always allowed myself to be lazy. I never liked working hard or appearing to put any effort in anything. I mocked my high school classmates for caring too much about their grades and college apps, and bragged about the little effort I put into anything. I wanted to be that ‘cool’, effortless smart kid who never worked hard and wowed everyone around him with his natural strengths and talents.

It all failed for me eventually. Now attending a good university in a difficult program, I quickly realized that my lack of discipline and study skills was no longer something to brag about. Within a single term, I was forced to switch majors because I couldn’t keep up with the work, and by the end of the first year I had to switch away from the sciences altogether because I lacked any sort of ability to organize my life, attend lectures, or even do my homework. I grew nervous and anxious; I lost my scholarships.

Back then, I almost laughed at the whole thing because I wanted to remain that sort of ‘effortless’ genius, but internally I grew worried. I eventually graduated with poor grades with a double major of Linguistics and Korean. I finally began to take things seriously but couldn’t help but look back at my previous years as a sort of failure, a secret disease of indolence that I didn’t want anyone to know about. Though it’s been burned into my head, I don’t think I’ve ever spoken my college GPA out loud, my shame sewing my lips shut.

And now that I’ve been out of college for more than three years, I find myself in the same city, only a few minutes away from my first apartment back in 2007. Earlier today, I walked around my old school, remembering all of the adventures that took place on campus. When I go jogging through the streets surrounding the campus, I remember who lived in what apartments and what parties I had attended where and when. It’s stuffed full of good memories, and I’m torn between nostalgia and embarrassment.

You see, there’s a part of me that sits here and feels like I’ve failed. I’m back in a city that, upon leaving in 2010, swore that I’d never live in again. I feel like I’m in the same place that I was three years ago except I somehow have less money than before, more debt, and am 25 years old. I’m still unsure of my future and what career to pursue. It feels uncertain and awkward, and I still balk and telling some of my more obviously successful friends what I’ve been up to.

But then I’m reminded that things are, in fact, not at all the same. I’m fortunate that in the years between then and now that I’ve matured a great deal. My time abroad pushed me to develop true independence- physically and emotionally. I take good care of my health and pay attention to my finances more than ever before. I’m a great deal more practical than I used to be and have learned how to avoid a lot of the old traps that I used to fall into so easily.

So now that I’ve examined the present and compared it to the past, it’s time to think about my future. More on that in the next entry!