In freshman year we’re wise enough to understand: We’ll grow up when we’re 30. Because, that makes sense, right? We have more than 10 years to figure out our shit and nail down ONCE AND FOR ALL what on earth we want to do. It’ll get clearer when we pick that Major we want. Vocations training. We’ll be ready for the real world after a Major. Until then, I’ll take another drink. Skip another class. Kill another blunt.
Then you hit sophomore year.
Your lackluster report card from the year before has shamed you into making a slew of resolutions that you either keep or break. And regardless of what you do, you are yanked into second semester. Under the hot lights, the loud voice booms. It’s time to declare!
Well shit. They catch us with silly looks on our faces with hands full of our genitals and expect us to decide our futures. So we quickly riffle through the offering list, just like we did when we were looking for college all but a handful of years ago.
Skimming pages, skipping chapters, fervently hunting down what subject on earth we’d be happy with for the rest of our life. Well of course we’re all at a loss, and if you weren’t, fuck you for making me jealous.
Film? Well, the industry is such a piece of shit. Government? Would I really want to be a politician? Music? I could never make it, so why take it? French? Not as a Major. I’d just as soon save myself $200K and go live there.
We all feel like royal assholes, because we had all last year to read this forsaken list. With the Jeopardy-jingle looping in the background and only seconds left on the clock, we pick that one that looks good enough for now. English looks fine. Open ended, easy reqs. We’ll take a Grande liberal arts clusterfuckuccino.
We make that delightful simplification and assume there’s some kind of “right” answer. Forgetting the simple truth: there are many. Always. Always and forever. It is a question of what works now.
But instead of taking a breath, cracking a smile and enjoying the time we’ve got here, we get worried. Anxious. Because god if we can’t find IT, our calling, what on earth is wrong with us? In our desperation we start thinking. We could always be lawyers. At least the pay is sick. And is that “Army” thing still recruiting?
Whatever the thought process is, you fill out the paper work. The bulk of us choose to Major in “I’ll get back to you…” while the rest of us take another couple months of “Undeclared”.
Right after we hand that paper in we begin to become aware of this sound. It’s quiet at first. But as we notice it, starts getting louder. It’s this faint… ticking? And then we wonder if we just signed away our lives. Because we still have those silly looks on our faces with our hands furiously fidgeting about our genitals, hoping that we can distract ourselves just one more moment from the question: What are you going to be when you grow up?
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