Direction

I went out to eat the other night with some friends and had kind of an eye opening experience. One of the people there was a young girl whom I’ve known since she was about five. She’s now in her early twenties and is currently completing her student teaching. We were all quizzing her and asking what she was going to do when she finished up… basically what her plans were for the future. She handled all the questions very well and answered everything very confidently but then she turned to me and said “So what are your plans, what are your goals, what are your dreams, where do you see yourself in five years… hmmmmm”? I didn’t think much about it at the time and just answered, “Oh, I’m never going to grow up and be responsible… I’m just going to be a bum the rest of my life… you know, just hang out and drink beer all the time”. Everyone got a kick out of that and agreed that’s what they were going to do too and we all had a big toast. After I got home though, I thought about what I said and that’s when I realized… possibly for the first time in my life, I really don’t have any plans, any goals… any dreams. A year ago I thought I knew where I was headed but somebody else made a decision that pretty much changed everything for me and I just never took the time to set a new course. For as long as I can remember I’ve been very much a creature of habit, a very structured and organized person. Always trying to figure out what the plan was and where I fit in. I thought things out, took everything into consideration and then tried to make the best possible decisions. Right now… I really am just hanging out and drinking beer all the time. I don’t have any plans or any goals and I’m not really looking forward to anything in particular. I’m not going anywhere… I don’t have any direction. That probably explains why I’ve done some of the things I’ve done over the past several months, things I normally don’t do. So I’ve sat down and came up with a new plan… not very extensive or detailed at this point, but a plan nonetheless. It’s time for me to quit wasting my time and have a nice life. I’m still not sure exactly where it is that I’m going… but I do know where I am not going.