What Every High School Senior Is Thinking
What if I don’t get into my top-choice university? What if I don’t get into my second choice? What if I don’t get accepted to any universities? What if I don’t know anyone at university? What if nobody likes me there? What if I never talk to my high school friends again? I don’t want to be a failure. I don’t want to be a laughingstock. I don’t want to see pity when I look in other people’s eyes. I don’t want to disappoint my parents. I want to be successful.
I don’t want to grow up. I want to be a kid forever. I don’t want to worry about anything. I want to feel safe. I want my parents to take care of me. I don’t want to leave my parents. I don’t want them to feel sad about my leaving. I don’t want them to feel lonely without me at home. I don’t want to feel lonely. How am I ever going to repay my parents? For university? For the time they devoted to raising me? For the unconditional love they’ve shown and continue to show me?
I don’t want to live on my own. I don’t know how to live on my own. How do I pay taxes? How do I rent an apartment? How do I find a job? How do I cook and clean and do my laundry and buy furniture and furnish a home? How do I start a family? What if I find out I can’t have kids? What if I never find love? What if true love doesn’t exist? What if my expectations of love are too high? What if I end up alone forever? What if nobody truly understands me? What if I get stuck in a marriage with someone I don’t love?
I don’t want to grow old. I don’t want white hair. I don’t want wrinkles. I want to be happy. But what if I never find true happiness? What if I never get to truly be myself, be authentic? Who am I? What if I get stuck with a job that I hate for my entire life? What if I die before I fulfill my dreams? What if I go to sleep and never wake up? What happens after death? Is/are there (a) supreme being(s)? Is there any point to my living? Is there a meaning to my life? Is anybody out there?
All this thinking about the future is harrowing. So I suppose I’ll just deliberately push these thoughts to the back of my mind and instead wonder:
Where is the pizza?
