Having a tough time

[ashleydecash]

Hi everyone,

Going through some things, what's new. I'm supposed to be a senior in college... in reality I'm a junior. Anyways, I've changed my major (officially and unofficially) quite a few times. And as I just started my program I am reconsidering AGAIN. I know ya'll can't tell me what I want to do with my life but is anyone going through something similar or has anyone gone through the same thing? Anyone I talk to always says the same thing which is either "I don't know what to tell you" or "just stick with what you're doing." Neither are helpful. I'm just super stressed because I'm wasting my time and money and having GAD on top of it doesn't make it easier. I feel like with anxiety I am always living in the future but I don't know what it holds, so if I think something isn't going well I want to change it. I've been taking career path quizzes feeling like a high schooler all over again, but I still have no clue what I want to do. It's tough for a 21 year old to choose what they want to do for the rest of their life. Any advice? Please don't come at me with any "go with the flow" crap cause we all know anxiety doesn't work that way.

Best,
Ash

[sae]

Hi everyone,

Going through some things, what's new. I'm supposed to be a senior in college... in reality I'm a junior. Anyways, I've changed my major (officially and unofficially) quite a few times. And as I just started my program I am reconsidering AGAIN. I know ya'll can't tell me what I want to do with my life but is anyone going through something similar or has anyone gone through the same thing? Anyone I talk to always says the same thing which is either "I don't know what to tell you" or "just stick with what you're doing." Neither are helpful. I'm just super stressed because I'm wasting my time and money and having GAD on top of it doesn't make it easier. I feel like with anxiety I am always living in the future but I don't know what it holds, so if I think something isn't going well I want to change it. I've been taking career path quizzes feeling like a high schooler all over again, but I still have no clue what I want to do. It's tough for a 21 year old to choose what they want to do for the rest of their life. Any advice? Please don't come at me with any "go with the flow" crap cause we all know anxiety doesn't work that way.

Best,
Ash


I have the worst advice you will probably ever hear, but it may be just the truth you will come to find too. Chances are you never really going to know what you truly want to do until you dedicate yourself to a long term goal of a career path.
I found my first career path through a stroke of good luck, landing a sweet set design, exhibit building gig as a younger teenager. Unfortunately anything art related is a fickle business so I ran out of work a few years in.
My second career choice came by way of a stupid whim based on a line from an even stupider "Space Ghost" song. "We could get married, just the two of us, you can get a job driving a school bus." I applied simply for the novelty of it, and because I was tired of working 3rd shift at a crackhead hangout convenience store. I was not expecting to actually get the job, but I did.
It wasn't like art. I didn't love it. I actually abhorred, HATED the job at first. After a few months I felt better about it, became better at the job. Several years pass and I am the queen of the road in my shiny cheesewagon.
Then life happened. I was no longer healthy enough to maintain the physical certification to drive for a district. I am now 34, having to once again reinvent the wheel so to speak. I had to once again decide what I wanted to be when I grew up. It's a tough row to hoe when you're suddenly afraid to leave your house.
I sat down, explored a few career choices within the realm of possibility and settled on one. So far so good. You have far more time than you think. Once you make a decision it may last you a life time or it may last a few years. Take the journey wherever it may lead you. As long as you have a drive to keep going, even if you have to veer into another direction, you'll be a-ok. If this spastic half dead girl can become a drafter, so can you do whatever your heart desires. Learn and grow, and don't rush the big decisions.
Take your cores, talk as often as you can with your advisor, weigh your academic strengths with your weaknesses, pair them up with the things you are interested in. Brainstorm and come up with a few possibilities, list the pros and cons of each path, and no that there are very few decisions so permanent that you can't pursue other avenues as they open up to you until you find just the right fit.

[NixonRulz]

Hi everyone,

Going through some things, what's new. I'm supposed to be a senior in college... in reality I'm a junior. Anyways, I've changed my major (officially and unofficially) quite a few times. And as I just started my program I am reconsidering AGAIN. I know ya'll can't tell me what I want to do with my life but is anyone going through something similar or has anyone gone through the same thing? Anyone I talk to always says the same thing which is either "I don't know what to tell you" or "just stick with what you're doing." Neither are helpful. I'm just super stressed because I'm wasting my time and money and having GAD on top of it doesn't make it easier. I feel like with anxiety I am always living in the future but I don't know what it holds, so if I think something isn't going well I want to change it. I've been taking career path quizzes feeling like a high schooler all over again, but I still have no clue what I want to do. It's tough for a 21 year old to choose what they want to do for the rest of their life. Any advice? Please don't come at me with any "go with the flow" crap cause we all know anxiety doesn't work that way.

Best,
Ash


Have you considered to just go with the flow?

I don't understand why all the pressure to know what you want to do at a young age. Yes, you are 21 but when you get older you will realize you are still a kid at 21

At 21, why would you need to have your life mapped out. You should be out drinking and partying at that stage of your life

The only stress you should have is whether or not the people you sent that SnapChat pic screen shotted it before it disappeared

My youngest is in elementary school. His final assignment was which college do you want to go to and why. Why the hell would he know where he is going to get an ultra liberal, horrible education from?

He ende up writing he had no idea but wanted them to be good at lacrosse

Ashley, I wouldn't get upset about this. YOU are the normal one. You are supposed to be indecisive. You are growing and changing every day and as you change, your interests and feelings will change as what you would like to do

I went through college, although a bit later than most and I stayed with business because it was what I and most of my family expected. I fu*kin hated it

Finished that degree to please the masses. Went back a year later to get a degree in something I was passionate about

Enjoy your time finishing up school. Let the pressure come from getting good grades, not having the perfect mapped out career path

There is plenty of time for that

Just go with the flow ;)

[needtogetwell]

I too changed majors multiple times, who the heck knows what they want in first year?

Like Nixon said, go with the flow. There is no way at 21 you can map out your life. Be free, wild and yes even a bit irresponsible! It's fun, and at 21 life is supposed to be fun.

Good luck.

[ashleydecash]

Thanks guys but going with the flow doesn't work for me, never has, never will.

[Buttberry]

Hi Ash,

I was in that same boat almost. I just graduated college. I was supposed to graduate in 2014 since everyone in my grade did. I graduated in 2015 because i changed my major. What is your major/what are you changing it to? I had to go through a lot to figure it out as well. I graduated and still don't have a good career path. I was able to find a good job at the moment but it's not a lifetime career for me. I'm just there for the stepping stone. Anyways, I am going back to school just so that i can make my future a bit easier and have more options and also to make job searches easier. I am now experiencing the anxieties of having to pay my school since i've used up more than half of my loans. It never ends!

[sae]

Going with the flow is very different from taking a complacent approach to stressors. It's not about saying "ehhh, don't worry about that" and magically it is supposed to right itself. Going with the flow is more about developing a priority system to your stressors.
Taking it as it comes is not always the right aproach. Sometimes I find myself overwhelmed and I start with a list of things that are causing me to freak out. It can be things as big as developing a retirement or career plan or as small as that damned spider that hangs out just out of reach in my bathroom (both are personal examples of mine). My list will wind up taking up at least a page.
My next step is marking all of the little stressors that I can immediately do something about. I make a separate list and devise a plan on how to solve the little things. IE: the spider. I don't want to kill it, but I am certain he is up there waiting to jump on me the minute I hop in the shower. My plan of action is to grab my foot stool and my duster and gently move him outside (unless he crawls on me, then he is DEAD, a smear, he is no more, he is an ex-spider).
You may find some of your little problems can't be solved right away so they go back on the list. Next I go through and mark the things on my list that I can't fix right away, or things that might be solved in multiple steps. Yet another list. It's the same process but instead of solutions you are writing goals. On my second list is becoming more financially comfortable. This comes in steps. I take a course at the college, take the certification exam, hit the streets, pimp my smarts, land a job. The steps in the goal are now broken up into more manageable tasks, organized by conditions like time, or current acessibility.
Obviously not every step in a longer term goal can be completed at once but now you have save points. Everything else unmarked on your on your list now are likely to be things you have no control over. On my last list I have down my late husband's mother. I can't control the things she says, but I can control how I react to it. This list is where the real magic happens. You have a concrete list of things that require you to relinquish control. I think so much of anxiety is an unwillingness to let go of all the things we just can't control like other people, medical emergencies, weather, or accidents. We become mental and emotional hoarders.
A mind with anxiety is much like stashing Tupperware in a cabinet. Sometimes you find yourself just jamming random lids in the cabinet and shutting it real quick before it all falls out. Eventually you are going to need something out of the cabinet and it is all going to fall out. Now you have to take it all out, throw away the microwave melted butter tubs, and lid less whipped cream bowls you have accumulated, stack up containers by like shape and size and then your cabinet becomes functional again.
This is what going with the flow is really all about, reorganizing your priorities and pitching the things you can't control.

[Jessicaleanne1992]

Hi everyone,

Going through some things, what's new. I'm supposed to be a senior in college... in reality I'm a junior. Anyways, I've changed my major (officially and unofficially) quite a few times. And as I just started my program I am reconsidering AGAIN. I know ya'll can't tell me what I want to do with my life but is anyone going through something similar or has anyone gone through the same thing? Anyone I talk to always says the same thing which is either "I don't know what to tell you" or "just stick with what you're doing." Neither are helpful. I'm just super stressed because I'm wasting my time and money and having GAD on top of it doesn't make it easier. I feel like with anxiety I am always living in the future but I don't know what it holds, so if I think something isn't going well I want to change it. I've been taking career path quizzes feeling like a high schooler all over again, but I still have no clue what I want to do. It's tough for a 21 year old to choose what they want to do for the rest of their life. Any advice? Please don't come at me with any "go with the flow" crap cause we all know anxiety doesn't work that way.

Best,
Ash



Nice to meet you. I'm very similar to you especially in the school aspect. I've been in college longer than I should have. It bothers me everyday. I feel as if I'm wasting time and money. The wasting time is what concerns me most. I feel like I'm not where I should be. Likey life is passing me by. And I agree anxiety does not just go with the flow. Anyone who truly has anxiety knows that. I wish I had food advice for you. But I don't, because I'm in the same boat. But you're not alone.