Do we need to know what job we want now?

Have you figured out what you want to do yet? It's the classic question for a twenty-something.

Have you sorted out your five-year plan, your career goals, the hobbies you'll have on the side and where your four children will grow up? I am, of course, exaggerating slightly but it also sounds so true and so real to a university undergraduate who is asked these questions constantly as if it is as simple as choosing between pasta or pizza for tea. It's not simple and I don't think I ever want it to be simple.

It determines your whole life and there's is so much expectation weighted within that question that rushing it doesn't feel like you're giving justice to your life. It is said that young people these days won't even have one career, they'll travel through careers and work for longer but with less security. 

And I mean, when you factor the climate and ecological emergency into your choices, you have even more of a struggle. Do you dedicate yourself to saving the world for the future or do you choose something you're actually passionate about pursuing or are you lucky enough that those paths find a way of overlapping conveniently? 

I always wanted to be a radio presenter. that was my crazy dream job idea that I never actually believed in. Just like everyone else wanted to be a model or pop star or tv host. Sadly it was because I thought people would find my content easier to digest and myself more palatable if they didn't have to look at my "ugly face", as ten year old me would have put it. But that's something to expand on another day. 

I also always wanted to write. I recently found my old notebook with all these half-finished stories in with characters and descriptions and adventures. I loved writing those little fantasies, it was just as much an escape for me as reading a book still is. Although I think as I've grown up, I have put so much pressure on writing that it stopped being such an escape and something which would pass the time with enjoyment. But I guess that's what happens when you grow up somewhat.

You realise the world won't necessarily cater for everything that you wish it was or you wish you could be and sometimes that means you lose your inner child somewhat. I think a great rebellion of society is finding your inner child again and embracing the new combination of lived wisdom and child-like fun and naivety, not caring so much about others and their thoughts of you. Now, I think I am always just rather terrified about writing the wrong thing or coming across not quite right and being judged for what I'm actually thinking rather than the acted version of myself that gets put out into the world. 

I think this too could be linked to sexism and the patriarchy. It seems that too may be a large topic to delve into.

Honestly, though, I have realised that I just want to share stories and messages, my own and others, I don't mind which particularly. Just things that I think other people should know, that I think its best that everybody knows. I love stories and as I have read in many books recently, stories are what gives humans hope and give them something to cling to when they don't understand something.

I believe in facts very much, I'm a bit of a mathematician at heart but have never felt I quite fitted into the scientific community. So, I've always been balanced rather precariously between science, the arts and humanities, unsure until the last moment about what I'm actually going to choose. So there it is. 

Maybe I have come to this conclusion too late but I don't know, I don't really think that's a thing. And I have spent many of the past years wondering how to solve the climate and ecological emergency as a shy woman from England without any influence, power or money to have taken much of an interest in what my future may hold. I just hope I have a future at all. But maybe this job will do it for me. Maybe I can help spread the message of this emergency far enough and wide enough that something gets done because I'm getting a little desperate. 

Being a journalist, writer, storyteller. That's the goal. Hopefully.

At the moment, I am as near to that goal as humans are to accepting their fate. but I am changing course, unlike the human race. I am determined to be able to write, I think. I like writing as long as I have things to write about and at least while there are newspapers to write for.

I think it must be investigative or at least slow journalism. I have no interest in keeping up to date every hour with what may be happening. That is of little consequence if we don't look at the bigger picture and try and analyses issues in years or decades or about the real future this world is facing. Problems never get solved with quick and glancing solutions, they take time and so too should the stories that get told. That's the kind of journalist I think I should hope to be.

I just want to reassure everyone out there that it doesn't matter if you don't know what you're doing with your life. You will figure it out eventually or maybe you won't and that's cool too. We're all just fumbling our way through life working out the exact balance of things that will make us all the happiest. There is always time to change direction on your journey or just have multiple passions and paths. 

Sending out special love to everyone who has graduated this year because this a hard time to enter the jobs market and my best friend is one of you so good luck. I am grateful that I am simply going into my third year of university this September so only have that battle next year when hopefully things will have improved a little.