What I Want From Life (Warning: sappy rambling!)

"Birds flying high

you know how I feel

Sun in the sky

you know how I feel

Breeze drifting on by

you know how I feel

It's a new dawn

It's a new day

It's a new life

for me

and I'm feeling good"

What do you want from life? Where do you want to be 5 years from now? 10 years? These are tough, almost impossible questions to answer. Whether you're 16, 25, or 50, it can be hard to articulate responses to them. We're not the same people at 16, 25, and 50 and therefore our goals and views change. I'm not the same person I was at 16 or even at 20 and I am extraordinarily grateful for this. You never wake up one day and realize you're a completely different person than you were yesterday, but you can wake up one day and realize you have grown in ways you never imagined over the past few months or years. 

 "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off

While here in DC, I've been taking part in The Washington Center's academic internship program. I have been interning with the United States Marshals Service. I have been doing a lot of self-reflection while training myself for my continual job search. I thought, then, that it would be good to sit down and articulate what I want from life in the most general terms. I am my father's daughter in that I am a planner, a list-maker, a lover of pro/con lists. I want to know where I'm going, even if most things that determine where I go are out of my control. So the best thing I can do for myself is keep some short-term and long-term goals. I believe every person should have these. They don't even need to be huge, cliche goals that sound ideal but are not realistic. However, there should be a mix of ambitious goals and down-to-earth goals. You can then measure what you have achieved versus what you hope to achieve. If you never reach your loftiest of ambitions, at least you can look over your mental list and appreciate all the things you have accomplished.

 "Remember, Red: hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies."
- The Shawshank Redemption

So in the interest of self-reflection, here are some of my goals:

• I want to become independent
  This seems simple. But for someone my age, this is a huge step. I cannot wait for the day when I can pay all of my bills myself. I cannot wait to have my own apartment. I want to be a responsible, productive adult.
  
  
• I want travel to be a part of my life.
  Some people find comfort and support in staying in one place their whole lives. They build their lives in that spot and surround themselves with friends and family - a community. Since this whole post is already full of cheese, I'll just say it - I want to world to be my community. These days, I would prefer to stay in America. I took advantage of the freedom of my youth in traveling all around Europe. I am grateful for every experience abroad. Now, I want to see the United States. In the field I've chosen, there's a good likelihood that I will have to move around a bit, which is exactly what I want. I would love to live in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, or other such cities at some point in my life. There is too much to see out there and, in my opinion, I would be cheating myself out of many great experiences in life if I stayed solely where I was comfortable. So yes, I would give a hotter climate a chance, if only to confirm that I hate hot climates (I am seriously counting down the time until autumn). The more I travel, the more I realize I enjoy cities and larger settings. The thought of year-round sunshine and heat sounds dreadful, but I would like to experience the West Coast. There is endless diversity of cultures in America and I hope to broaden my horizons beyond what I know. Because if there's one thing a young person should be able to admit, it's that you don't know what you don't know. So many things in life can't be known until you experience them.
  
  
• I want to be constantly learning
  And this doesn't only mean in an academic sense. Although one of my goals is to someday get my Masters degree, I want to always be learning and bettering myself. As people say, happiness isn't some finish line where you cross over into being "happy" and you're done. Likewise, education shouldn't be a destination but a process that is always occurring. I want a career that has opportunities for more training and more learning.
  
  

"I just don't think I can continue to live in a place that embraces and nurtures apathy as if it was a virtue."
"You're not different. You're no better."
"I didn't say I was different or better. I'm not. Hell, I sympathize; I sympathize completely. Apathy is the solution. I mean, it's easier to lose yourself in drugs than it is to cope with life. It's easier to steal what you want than it is to earn it. It's easier to beat a child than it is to raise it. Hell, love costs: it takes effort and work."
- Se7en

• I want to have job prospects
  Since I want to be constantly growing and developing, I want to have the possibility for advancement. I've never thought of myself as an ambitious person, but it turns out I just needed the right ambition.   
  
  
• I want a career dedicated to service and integrity
  I know it's idealistic and silly, but I want a career rather than a job. And I want that career to be more than just a paycheck. Now, I'm not naive. "Do what you love and the money will come," "Money can't buy you happiness," and like cliches are incredibly bad advice. Yes, life is about more than money, but you can't do much without it. I don't need to be making six figures, but I certainly want to be able to do more than pay for the basics of survival. Thanks to sensible parents, I understand the importance of being financially smart and secure. But I still don't want to go to an office and think and talk and plan about money all day. I always knew business was not going to satisfy me as a career field. I want a career that requires a certain caliber of character. At the end of my life, I want to be able to look back and know that I helped someone, that I made a difference to someone. I want this world to be a little bit better for having me in it. Cliche, idealistic, silly. Don't worry, in 5 or 10 years when the system's beaten me down I'll write another self-assessment chastising my foolish younger self.  
  
  

"I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that."

- Say Anything...

• I want a career with some variation
  I don't want to sit at a desk 24/7, but I also don't want to be out and about 24/7. I rather not have a "'typical day." I don't even mind if I have "typical work hours." I don't want to go in every day, 9-5, do my work and leave. I want my work to be more important than that. I want my work and effort to be valued. I want some degree of responsibility and expertise in my work.
  
  

• I want to become bilingual
  This is definitely one of my long-term goals. It's also one of my oldest goals. Every year I get closer and closer to this with Russian, but now that school is over for now, it's harder to self-teach. Even if it's just Spanish one day, I want to become fluent in a foreign language. (Preferably more than one, but one step at a time!) This has never been my particular area of skill and natural talent, but I'm always trying.  
  
  

"You want to take the easy way out...because you're scared. You're scared because if you try and fail, there's only you to blame. Well, Missy, let me break this down for you, Bobbo-style. Life is scary. Get used to it...There are no magical fixes. It's all up to you. So get up off your keister, get out of here, and go start doing the work...Nothing in this world that's worth having comes easy."

- Scrubs

• I want to go to McAuley's Career Day
  This one's silly, I know, but I LOVED Career Day back in high school. Part of this is just ego on my part, since I'm envisioning an awesome future self going back to my past (in a way) and telling students all about how much better it can get. I always thought people who said high school is the best years of your life were sad people. I refuse to accept that high school or even college is supposed to be the highest point of a person's life. Another reason I want to do this is because I didn't discover the field of criminal justice and law enforcement as a viable option until late in college. For some reason, I didn't even register it as a career path for a long time. Perhaps because going to college, you're supposed to study something sophisticated like philosophy or biochemistry, while criminal justice is the subject your hear promoted on late night informercials for online schools. But now I'm falling in love with this field more and more every day and can't wait to be a part of it. So I hate the idea of other young people, especially girls, not considering this field. It's not promoted like other college majors/career paths, especially for women, so I want to go to my old high school and show them another option in law, government, and service.
  
  
• I want to cut down on the cheesy cliches and rambling soliloquies.
  I promise I will, but this is the Summer of Amanda, her Quest for a Career, and her Journey into Adulthood.

As always, best of luck to everyone else! No experience is bad experience, and it's never too late to change or improve.

"You got your passion, you got your pride

but don't you know only fools are satisfied?

Dream on but don't imagine they'll all come true."