10 Years Later

So, I was having a conversation with a couple of my co-workers the other day and we were discussing life in general. I had received an email earlier that morning about my 10 year high school reunion and as I let sink in the emotion of realizing that an entire decade had almost gone by, I couldn't help but to think about the paths I had taken and the roads that I either bypassed altogether or did a quick u-turn on.

One of my co-workers, whom is a mere 21 years old, fresh out of undergrad, starting talking about what she had went to school for and that she is pretty much doing what she had been dreaming of, which is non-profit work. I couldn't help but think to myself, it must be nice to know what you want, because at 28 I still have trouble making decisions on what it is that I ultimately want to do.

As a kid, we probably changed what we wanted to be when we grew up almost everyday, but the reality was we had goals and ambitions to be successful, and as years went by those dreams either faded or baecame a reality. I remember as a five year old that while a lot of my peers wanted to be Doctors and Lawyers when they were older, I for some reason had my mind set on being a Lumberjack! Yes, a lumberjack. Don't ask me how that ever popped into my mind but in this day and age with global warming and conservation, I don't think letting that one go was a bad idea.

By the time that I had reached high school and was well aware of environmental issues and those sort of things, I had my mind set on being a Marine Biologist. I would actually go to the library time and time again to do research on the subject, learning as much as I possibly could about marine life and it's ecosystems that I would one day work around. There was a certain drive in me to actually pull out my typewriter (you heard me right) and send out letters to all kinds of wildlife reserves, museums, and such to gather all the information that I could find out thanks in part to the, "Wildlife Treasury" collection that I had been ordered over the years. (Hmm, I wonder if they're still up in the attic at my parent's house?) It was actually a great thing to come home from a long day at school and find mail that was addessed to me with replies from these various organizations, giving me advice or brochures and other paraphanelia that they could mail out.

Because of this strong motivation I had mde up my mind to where I wanted to go to school and how I was going to get there. But then you go through 4 years of high school (some of us) and things begin to change. There are paths that we take and those that we vere off of and then before you know it, sometimes the things that you had planned on doing don't get done.

Which brings me to 10 years later, because if you have not guessed it, I am not a Marine Biologist, nor a lumberjack. LOL.

But how many of us can actually say that we are what we wanted to be. Sure there are few, but the majority of us have settled for something else, either by choice or by sheer luck. The thing is, and I have said it before, every step that we take in life has an outcome or consequence, meaning things happen for a reason whether we deem them good or bad, and I can honestly say that I am a better person from the paths that I have taken and more comfortable in my own skin.

For instance, at almost 30 I am just now realizing that I love non-profit work and this is why I have decided to get my Master's in Non-profit Management. And it only took me an entire decade after the fact to know what I wanted to be after High School.