Monday, January 6, 1997
GRADUATING:
Fast-approaching milestone creates a pensive search for the
right line of workBy Pamela Erickson
Like a leaf blowing in the autumn wind I feel as if I could
float in at least a dozen different directions. Where to go? What
to do next? Both are questions that fill my brain, consume my
thinking life. Unlike the "sugar plums" that should be dancing in
my head at this time of the year, I lie awake at night tossing and
turning. Persistently pensive. Chronically conscious of the
importance of my position and the impending weight of the decision
that I will soon have to make.
I am a senior at UCLA facing the reality of graduating next
June. Like most of my friends that are also graduating spring
quarter, I have spent much time pondering what seems to be an
endless amount of post-undergraduate possibilities. Perhaps I am
taking all of this much too seriously. I should worry less and
enjoy more. After all, life will go on no matter what I decide to
do. But no. That kind of laissez-faire attitude is against my
nature. I am an inherently serious person, inclined to invest the
time in order to make decisions that I feel will cause me the least
amount of future regrets and disappointments.
I am reminded of a short story that I once read in high school,
in which the main character looks back on his life and cries out,
"My God, this is not what I meant at all." I recognize my greatest
fear in this story’s conclusion. To look back on my life and cry,
"This is not what I meant at all."
Maybe it is for this reason, the fear of making some big mistake
or not living my life to its fullest potential, that I consider my
options so carefully. It is not so much that I do not know what I
want to do, but rather that I want to do it all and I am afraid
that I can’t. I have been told by many women of my mother’s
generation that I am lucky to have so much flexibility in
considering what I want to do with my future. Thirty years ago this
was not so. Women were steered towards careers in teaching, nursing
and secretarial work; therefore I should revel in this freedom.
While I do appreciate it and wouldn’t trade it for anything I
must admit that the emptiness of the canvas that I am left to paint
is a bit daunting. What colors shall I use? What will be the
subject of my work ? Will other people appreciate what I have done?
Wouldn’t it be so much easier if I was given some sort of
limitations, guidelines, anything that would take the pressure off
of being in charge of the grand design?
So I am left to paint. I find myself looking within to find the
answers. I have a friend who consistently tells me whenever I am
struggling with a dilemma that the answers are all there inside of
me, weaved into the pattern of my life. I only have to ask the
question and then to listen and look for the omens that were always
there to guide me.
Last Saturday I received two very important letters in the mail.
The first was a nomination offered to me by the Los Angeles Peace
Corps Office to serve in the Health and Nutrition Program in Mali,
Africa. While this is not a final letter of acceptance it is a
significant step leading toward an invitation to participate in
their program. Volunteering for the Peace Corps has always been one
of my lifelong dreams; to live in another country, to help people
in a profound and personal way, to do something that is challenging
in every respect: physically, mentally, emotionally. I let out a
huge sigh of relief and think to myself "maybe."
I also received my LSAT scores. After $800 spent on a
preparation course taken during the summer, along with months of
studying and stressing I received the fruit of all my efforts. For
all intents and purposes it is safe to say that I am an LSAT loser.
I feel as if I am Alice in Alice and Wonderland and that I am much
too big to fit into that little door. "I took the potion," I cry.
"Why didn’t it work?" I am extremely disappointed. I feel stupid
and inadequate. And I am angry. Why can’t I be a lawyer? Doesn’t it
mean anything to anyone that I have noble intentions? That I want
to spend my life helping children, not working for some corporate
mongrel? I have an overriding passion, I am dedicated to a cause.
Doesn’t this count for anything? Shouldn’t it mean more than
scores?
The answer to all of this is yes. My passion means everything.
And in the end it is all I will ever need. The tricky part is going
to be in finding what avenues I will direct my energy. Law school
looks like it is out of the question, at least for the time being.
After feeling hopelessly rejected by a cold cut-throat standardized
testing system that I have never done well in, I remembered that I
was never certain as to whether or not I wanted to be a lawyer
anyway, and that maybe all of this was happening for reasons that
at this time remained unclear to me. We seldom see the color of the
water in our own fish bowl. It is only after we venture outward,
leave the situation we are in, that we begin to understand why we
had to be there in the first place.
The fact that I received both of these letters on the same day
is in my opinion, of no small consequence. "This means something,"
I think to myself. And I am immediately seized with fear. "This
means that I should go to Africa." And I begin to cry
uncontrollably. Why am I so scared? The truth is it is not so much
because of what I am afraid of finding there but of what I am
afraid I might lose here. So many things are important to me how
can I ever choose between them?
And the battle begins. There are so many things I have thought
about doing. Becoming a lawyer, a teacher, pursuing a master’s
degree. If I go to the Peace Corps I will be so old, 25, by the
time I return. That puts me at around 27 before I finish school.
And I want to get married, have children, a career.
And what about him? The medical student I am absolutely head
over heels with? The one I want to marry and have him be the father
of my children, who lives in San Francisco? If I leave I could lose
him forever and I love him you see, with everything that I am. How
will I ever decide between them?
"You don’t have to," whispers that little voice that comes from
somewhere at just the right time and if you are listening hard
enough. "With time everything that remains unclear to you now will
make itself known to you. This kind of knowledge arrives on its own
hour to be seized or relinquished forever. For now you must decide
what will make you happy today even if it may seem difficult, even
if you must sacrifice in order to gain. You will choose and then
you will live with the consequences of your decision. And no matter
what happens you will have learned a great many lessons along the
way. You will have lived your life doing what you felt was best for
you at the time. And you will never look back on the painted canvas
of your life, only to say ‘This is not what I meant at all.’"
I am still struggling with what I am going to do, even after
this somewhat of a metaphysical, spiritual encounter with what
seems to have been myself. I am still scared. But I will go to
Africa, because it is what feels right. I guess my friend was
correct when she said that all you have to do is to ask the right
questions, listen really hard and then the truth will make herself
known to you. How do you know if your interpretations of the
conversations with yourself are true and are not somehow being
misinterpreted? In response I would have to say that eventually you
know because it just feels right. This doesn’t mean that you aren’t
scared or that you won’t continue to second guess what you have
decided to do. It just means that after all that time you spent in
torturous consideration of the possibilities of your life,
something came to you and just made sense.