We all like to know what we want, no matter what that may be. You might fantasise about being a billionaire, crave Italian cuisine, aspire to be an author, be desperate to pass your exams, long to be thinner or hold hope for a pay increase. No matter how big or small, plausible or unrealistic, weird or mundane and necessary or superfluous, there is a certain satisfaction in pinpointing a desire and subsequently calculating, considering, plotting, planning and working towards it. Those in the throws of confusion will tell you emphatically that they want not for money or love or health but simply for clarity. Or at least, that’s what I’d tell you.
Henry David Thoreau once said, “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.” Confusion however, is a leech that does this for you and leaves you feeling unfocused, deadened and hopeless. When you don’t know what you want and you don’t know where you’re headed, you become vulnerable to a host of emotions ranging from hope to boredom to frustration to pure depression. And if you’re especially confused, you might cyclically experience the whole spectrum in each day. Confusion feels an awful lot like bi-polar for there a moments when you think you’ve hit on what you want (and boy is that high-inducing) followed by moments when you have no clue, you second guess your ideas and you feel back at square one (square one being akin to rock bottom). Confusion is exhausting; it robs you of physical energy, emotional stability and mental capacity, leaving behind a shell of what was your pre-confusion self.
On the flip side (the side on which you most definitely want to be), clarity is food for the soul. Having a clear idea of what you want is the first step on the road to where ever you want to go and without this knowledge, your personal growth stagnates and sometimes, depending on the severity of your confusion, even regresses. Your desire may be to be the richest person on planet earth and although at times the daunting nature of such a humongous dream might leave you feeling less than joyful, the naked fact that you know what you want opens the door to motivation, inspiration, innovation, determination, perseverance and accomplishment. Feelings that every single person (whether they be conscious of it or not) craves and thrives on. We all want to feel active and purposeful. We all want to know what we’re working towards. We all thrive on having a dream and taking steps towards it.
The past twelve months (since I graduated high school) have been the most confusing, unfocused and soul-destroying months of my life. That last adjective sounds a little dramatic, doesn’t it? But it’s true. I used to be a lively, active, adventurous girl with big goals and a robust spirit. However, since falling into a crevasse of endless confusion, my lack of direction has suffocated my life’s flame and left me in a dull and pathetic state of inertia. I don’t have cancer, I’m not below the poverty line, I’m not uneducated, I haven’t lost a loved one…but if you took one look at my state of mind, you might think I was in the midst of one of such traumas. Confusion, like I said, sucks the marrow out of life and boy has it sucked the marrow out of mine.
Yesterday, I wrote about going to Kenya. Today, I write about why I’m not going. I don’t blame you if you sigh; I change my mind more often than I change my underpants (which, don’t worry, is as often as demanded by the conventions of good hygiene). I’m not going because after a very long and in depth conversation with my mother about Kenya, my intentions, my emotions and my future, we came to the joint conclusion that my considering going to Kenya was simply (Simply? Why do I say simply? There’s nothing simple about it) an attempt to escape my current, stagnant lifestyle and feel as I were doing something worthwhile and productive. I do not doubt that going to Kenya would be an incredible experience. One that would open my mind and shift my perspective. But right now, it’s not the right decision for me. Going overseas should be a decision driven by desire and excitement, not by escapism and confusion.
So what am I going to do instead? Well, in two and a half months, I find out the admission decisions for the American colleges to which I applied. To go to an American college is the only thing I know with all my heart that I want. And it feels good to know that. But I’m in stage three of the admissions process: waiting. Waiting to be accepted or waiting to be rejected. If I get accepted into one of the six, I will need every penny that I’ve earned in the past year to finance the cross-continental move, the furnishings of my dormitory, part of my intuition, the U.S. visa requirements and a whole myriad of other, yet to be foreseen expenses. Going to Kenya or any other overseas destination would chop my savings in half and could jeopardise my chances of actualising my American college dream. So, for now, Kenya is on the back-burner. I’m going to get another job (in spite of my determination to never work in retail or hospitality again) and continue working towards the only thing that I desire with certainty. And if April arrives and I’m not accepted anywhere (God forbid), well then I will reconsider Kenya and the land beyond Australia and I will do so the right way: with focus, with clarity and without the distracting thoughts of “what if I get in to a college” and “what will I do after this”.
Clarity is food for the soul and right now, my soul is starving. I need to nourish it with a little decisiveness and a lot more self-confidence and because I find clarity in my college goal, I’m going to focus on it as opposed to on how I’m going to occupy myself until August. And alas! I think that was just a decision. A decision made. I’m making progress, I’m navigating my way from confusion to clarity and I’m finally guiding my mind in a productive, healthy and lively direction.
