Some of life’s biggest decisions happen within your four years of college. Even now, you’re probably asking yourself five million questions about your future. Who should I live with? What major should I choose? What job should I apply to? Each decision comes with the daunting ‘what-ifs’ that leave you thinking about the other lives that accompany those other decisions.
Maybe one life is becoming a doctor; long hours of studying, perfectly scheduled days, pristine white coats and all the Grey’s Anatomy tropes you can think of. Another is marketing. A corporate nine to five with expensive dinners and long nights out in the city. A different life is a writer. Cozy coffee shops while rain pours outside, hours spent chasing down a story, all to come back to a peaceful and quiet home.
So Many Decisions, So Little Time
Sylvia Plath describes this exact feeling in her famous fig tree metaphor:
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
– Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Plath’s book where this quote comes from, The Bell Jar, was written in 1963 but continues to be relatable even today.
The FOMO of Different Lives
We’ve all experienced the fear of missing out in day to day life. Wether it’s missing a night out to the bars or the morning debrief afterward, the anxiety of missing out creeps into our minds. These big life decisions are no different.
With over 275 majors here at Penn State, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed in decision making. What if you pick the wrong one? Or it’s completely different than you expected? You can only research so much before making the not so set in stone decision.
Let’s face it, we’ll all know at least one person who has changed their major, maybe even multiple times. That person could even be yourself! The decision to switch brings in an all new anxiety of leaving one future behind for another.
Feeling At Peace
So with so much anxiety about the unknown, the question remains: how do you make peace with your decisions?
One of the most important things to remember is that the ‘what-ifs’ will always exist. Wasting time and mental energy worrying about them will only fill you with more decision dread. Instead, be sure to look ahead at what your future holds for you. Instead of seeing a million decisions that you might mess up, see it as a million ways for you to change your life, a million opportunities.
What future life does your path hold? Tweet us @VALLEYmag on X, along with your mood board for the years ahead!
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