25 and LOL… WTF Am I Doing with My Life?

I’m not much of a planner.

For people who grew up with Type A me, this sounds like I fell off a bar stool in Iowa City and hit my head. While I have actually seen this happen, (LOL college bars *shudder*), that’s not the case.

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Kinda like this. But in a scuzzy college bar.[/caption]

A few weeks ago, my mom mentioned that I’ve really “mellowed out” in age. I want to say old age, but I’m a quarter of a century old, trying to ignore the fact that I’m in the midst of a very real quarter-life crisis. (If you click no other links, you HAVE to click this one. Buzzfeed GIF articles are my favorite form of “Oh my God, this is so accurate, but also, LOL.”)

While I have learned that planning things to the letter doesn’t really work for my anxiety or my self-esteem (Oh, what’s that? Your ideal life plans failed? YOU MUST BE THE WORST AT ADULTING), I also recognize there needs to be some idea of where you’re headed. Otherwise, you’re just wandering around like a drunk chick in the Ped Mall, heels in hand, trying to figure out if pizza or a burrito comes next. And then perhaps later, you’re ditching said shoes in someone’s lawn because they hurt your feet and your drunk self decided you didn’t need that kind of unnecessary pain in your life (This last part I actually did do. Fuck those shoes, for real).

I’ve always had a picture of what life would look like at 25. Actually, I’ve had pictures, because the idea of committing all the way to one thing is still a fear I’m working through (while simultaneously kind of avoiding. See? Adulting so well. *insert eye roll here* Sorry, Dad).

In the oldest picture, I’m just out of graduate school — maybe pursuing a PhD. For whatever reason, since kindergarten, I always assumed I would go to grad school. There’s no real logic there. It was just something I always thought I had to do.

In another, I’m in heels, with a bitchin Ariana Grande high pony, rocking something stylish and working as an executive HBIC at some big company. Think Sandra Bullock’s character in The Proposal (there’s that high pony again). However, I don’t like walking around in heels, and sitting in an office all day sounds like the biggest soul suck ever.

In one, I’m working for a company I’m crazy about. I’ve found I work better in situations where having an entrepreneurial mindset is both appreciated and encouraged. I think it’s the creative in me. This is a newer one, and I credit that unexpected love to The University of Iowa and JPEC for introducing me to the magic (and terror) that is being an entrepreneur, whatever that even means. It feels like everyone is an entrepreneur these days.

In another, I write stuff that people actually read. If I wrote as often as I daydreamed, I’d probably have finished one or two of the many books I’ve started. I should probably work on that now that I have all this unforeseen free time. *thoughtful chin scratch, pondering life options face*

While all of the pictures are nice, the reality looks (and feels) much different.

• I’m 25
• I have no idea what I’m doing with my life currently or what I would really like to be doing
• And I never thought that would be the case

In the last few years, after starting a business while doing my undergraduate studies (LOL CRAZY, DUMB, CRAZY, DUMB, but also kind of AWESOME, and dumb), I learned that the only real way to accomplish anything while holding onto your sanity is to let go of the need to always know what’s about to happen. This is one of the best things the “entrepreneurial life” taught me.

The more rigid your plans, the more difficult it feels to adapt when things go wrong. And for anyone who has tried to forge their own path, you’ll know that it always goes wrong. All the time. Every day. Multiple times a day. If you’re lucky, you squeak by with maybe one mishap in a day. This is rare, and a moment to rejoice (but only a little bit). It’s also a possible sign that you’re not growing or taking risks when you should be, but this depends where you’re at in the process, and honestly, it never really feels like you know.

Starting a business that required me to play with dogs (and sometimes cats and horses, and on the rare occasion, chickens and parrots) was a fantastic accident. I didn’t plan to start a business — it just happened. That’s also generally how this entrepreneurial thing goes. You stumble into something and decide to run with it. So I stumbled into the best way to have my favorite animal in my life, with minimal financial burden and even less time commitment than owning a pet requires. It was grand for the three years that I put into it.

But, as sometimes happens, the same love I stumbled into, I’ve stumbled out of. I now have a puppy of my own, with whom I want to spend all my free time. I no longer get the same thrill of picking up new clients, or spending 6–8 hours a day running around the Iowa City area caring for a billion adorable furbabies, and I’m well past wiped out from the “never actually off work” feeling, in conjunction with the suck ass administrative necessities that running a business requires. In short: I’m burned out.

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This little girl gets me.[/caption]

I’m phasing myself out of that part of my life, and finding myself in an unexpected place.

In all of the time I’ve spent working tirelessly and never stopping to take a break, I’ve landed in “life direction purgatory” — a scary place where I’m not really sure what I would love to do with my time.

The problem is, I’ve been spoiled.

I was able to work for myself early on in my professional life. I got to make my own rules, set my own schedule, and spent my free time doing “work” that I genuinely enjoyed. For some, it takes decades to get to that place. For others, it never happens. I count myself lucky beyond belief, but it also makes the thought of working anywhere that I’m not over the moon about seem a lot like volunteering for a seat in Hell.

Now I need to figure out what I love doing. (I can already hear my dad quoting one of his many phenomenal emails to me):

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That tattoo’d advice[/caption]

So while I don’t know much, here are the things I do know (HUZZAH!):

1. I love being outside. Animals are and have always been both fascinating and exceptionally cool to me (shout out to my parents for those Zoo Book subscriptions… Think they’re still somewhere in the basement? THE ONE WITH THE BLUE FOOTED BOOBIES ALWAYS MADE ME GIGGLE. LOL BOOBIES. I’m immature).
2. I’ve just started to get into obstacle course racing, and I love to lift weights. Pushing my physical limits as often as possible is a challenge I respond well to, and, added bonus: it does wonders for improving mental tenacity. Mental game strong, tho. *Hulk flex*
3. I love working as part of a team, and I really would like to have a job that requires me to do a different thing every day.
4. I can’t stand being micromanaged, and I rather prefer being given a task and allowed the freedom to figure out how to accomplish it on my own.
5. Comedy is one of my all-time favorite things, but I’m not funny, and I prefer to listen to jokes. Can I get paid to laugh all the time? That would be great.
6. I love to dance, and EDM music has been an obsession since I was 10, but I don’t do drugs, and I’m approaching a point in my life where being a go-go dancer probably isn’t something I should be seriously considering.
7. I love nightclubs, but generally despise most of the personality types you find frequenting the nightlife scene.
8. I like helping people, but there’s a limit to my patience and tolerance. This is why my psych degree is now useless, because counseling sounds like the most exhausting thing I could give my time to (props to all mental health workers out there. It’s tough, grueling work, and I don’t care to grow the teeth for it).
9. I love GIFs. A lot. They make all the conversations I have look exactly like what’s going on in my brain (Sounds like I’m on drugs, I swear I’m not, Mom!).

So I love some things, and hate others. I haven’t yet found a way to create my own solution that combines the passions I have with solutions for the problems I see. It seems that all signs point to an entrepreneurial life being the life for me, but to do so, I need to have more purpose, and right now, if it hasn’t felt clear yet… I have none. I’m looking for some. I feel like I’m that person standing in the fountain fishing out coins. “HAS ANYONE SEEN A GOOD IDEA IN HERE FOR ME? I’M LOOKING FOR SOME PURPOSE!”

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I’m freakin’ out, man.[/caption]

So I’m 25. I have no idea what I’m doing, what I want to be doing, or what’s up ahead. In the meantime, I will write. I will lift. I will keep thinking about stuff that makes me excited to jump out of bed in the morning. (This list is pathetic, I am fully aware.)

And soon, I’ll have it all figured out.

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You got this, gurl.[/caption]

LOL, who am I kidding? I’ll never have it all figured out. But I’ll have some direction. And that’s really what this whole thing is about, right? Remembering Frost. Choosing the road not taken. Finding my own path. Picking a direction… One Direction… (HA HA JUST KIDDING… KIND OF).

Now if I can just figure out how to get out of the woods…