That Funny Time I Thought I Had Everything Under Control

For the first time in my life I have no idea what the fuck I’m supposed to be doing.
Now to frame that a little more I am only 18 and my lack of perspective says maybe this is how it is for most people, but it really doesn’t feel like it and that sucks. I’ve always been the kind of person who knew what they wanted in life and ‘felt’ like it was all going according to plan. I was never truly burdened by choice, I was constantly surrounded by people I knew from the school environment, and six months ago that all vanished, I am alone, confused and burderning my future self with debt that may or may not have been worth it in any way.
Change is fun and difficult.
My younger self always had a strong answer to “What do you want to be when you get older?”, a classic and now, very difficult question to answer. “I want to make games” was always my response, that was until I learned what it actually took to make a game, lots of hard work. So I switched gears and aimed myself at the business world, experimented with different areas in high school and am now in my second semester studying economics and finance. Except I fucking hate it, or I hate parts of it, or I hate being back at school (I am a bad student), or the part of me deep down inside says that I knew all along that I should be writing or sitting in film school studying in which instances dutch angles are justified.
Whatever it is it isn’t working or maybe I have made all the right decisions and there is just something wrong with me, either way something has got to give.
The transition to being an adult is a little harder than I thought.
Freedom is a life changing aspect of every young adults being. The freedom to go order a drink at a bar, the freedom to put my keys into my car and go wherever I please is almost intoxicating. But in a way I never expected it feels almost like a handicap, my ability to narrow down the possibility space of my life has seemingly disappeared overnight. What do you do when you can chose to do anything. My answer has recently been to do nothing, I’ll go out and enjoy time with friends, but I don’t put in the effort to make new ones. I’ll spend more energy on my old hobbies instead of investing in new ones despite the desire and excitement to do so. I’ll make my two hour commute to university which is in the city, my favourite place to be, only to try and get home as fast as possible.
Building a new me piece by lego sized piece.
I cope with discomfort by doing things, it isn’t easy and it comes in fits and starts but they happen. My focus over the last month has been forming new habits, reading all the other motivational articles on this platform have pushed me to try and improve my health mentally and physically. The main two for me have been to start running, and waking up at the same time every morning, building routines. Actually a third could be setting an alarm every morning and night to brush my teeth because I suck at remembering. Routine has never been my strong suit, so making these relatively meaningful adjustments to my life actually help a lot. My running story simply comes from a late night spur of motivation in which I was sitting in bed at 10:30pm watching Don Cheadle be Don Cheadle in ‘House of Lies’ when it happened, I stood up, grabbed my clothes and some running shoes and arrived home half an hour later feeling incredible. Just start, that’s the hardest part.
This freedom that I have perhaps makes me crave the comfort of my old life, yet all I can do is yearn for a new one.
Now I’ll admit that this piece doesn’t really have a point to it other than another person on this planet doesn’t know what they’re doing, however that isn’t particularly original and it is also quite apparent to me that this reads like a cry for help but it doesn’t feel like that this is just an admission on my part and I just hope that someone in a similar position reads this and knows that it just happens and you’ll get there just like I will.
A stream of consciousness piece by Fraser Hansen
Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/fraserhansen/
Follow me on unsplash here: https://unsplash.com/@fraserhansen