I have one more semester, and this is how I feel.

I have yet to fall asleep because my mind is racing like usual. My Spotify has been helping me discover new and old music and I’m starting to realize that the future is an actual thing. This is a blog from the perspective of a college senior, and you’re going to get my feelings from right here and right now. Me as a college senior.

Before you read this, you should know my basic situation. This is my eighth of nine semesters of my undergraduate “career.” I have one more semester! Many, many of my friends are graduating in two weeks and I am absolutely fine with that because I have a somewhat demanding major and I’m finally learning a lot of interesting things about marketing and about myself. I’m fine with everything about graduating in another semester.

I have one more semester and I plan to make the absolute most of it in every way. I genuinely, want to get a marketing internship. I have always thought that internships are just so cool and impressive. That might sound weird, but I have always dreamed of being wildly successful and I know that an internship is where I want to start.

The whole idea of success is just so interesting to me, and I think when you ask someone what it looks like to be successful, they will give you a pretty definitive answer.

Some people will say they just want to have people who love them. Some people will tell you they just want enough money to pay the bills.

The only thing I have ever wanted in life is to be impressive. I just want to be impressive.

This has been the most humbling semester of my entire educational experience. I have always been unique and different. I have always been so one of a kind that it “wouldn’t make any sense for me to be anything less than very successful.”

Do you know what? I have spent this semester in my marketing classes, listening to idea after idea, presentation after presentation, and I am realizing that I am just that. I am different. There is nobody like me.

And I don’t know if it is working out for me right now.

There are a lot of people who are doing just fine, and they don’t seem to be overly original. I had a group presentation today, and the class seemed to love my part of it. I can make people laugh with my confidence. I can engage people in a way that not many other people can. But is being different and exciting going to actually make me successful? And is it going to make me any more successful than someone who is not all that different? I’m not too convinced that it will right now.

My self doubt has always been followed up by my friends with “but what do you mean you won’t make it? You’re BEN HAWES.”

What does it even mean to be me? I have always thought it meant something. And I think it still does, but I don’t think it means everything I thought it did.

I thought that being Ben, the guy with the imagination, would be enough. I’m starting to think it’s not. I honestly thought that the world would take me with open arms and congratulate me the day I decided it was time. I knew I would have to work very hard and I knew that It would be difficult, but I didn’t expect it to be so hard to actually start it off.

All I want is to start off. I just want to get a position that will allow me to learn. To grow. I want some place that will improve me. A job I am good at. One that allows me to be creative. One that allows me to be me. But I would start anywhere.

If you ask me about my dream job, I most likely will tell you that I want to be the creative director of an advertising agency. I might also tell you my more immediate dream of writing articles for buzzfeed.

But I think that my answer is going to be that I honestly do not know. I can not tell you for sure what I want to do with my life. How many people have we met who have told us that they didn’t end up following their dreams from their early twenties? So many of those people are happy people. I have to trust that I am going to get better at dreaming and that my dreams at thirty will be much better and larger and smarter than my dreams now.

I think a lot of my happiness will be based on the work I chose to do. My career is almost impossibly important to me, and I have always envisioned myself as a big hot shot advertising guy. I have always put so much value on my potential and my future.

I think it’s all great, and I think it is important to dream. But right now I think I need to focus on just starting somewhere and start to see what I like.

Thanks for reading! Leave a comment with your thoughts!