As I was speaking with my CAPS alumni mentor this past week, he shared a story and the essence of this story is to be content with letting the world come to you, which is exactly the point my mentor was trying to get across as I expressed the somewhat indecisiveness I have towards my career plan. He goes on to share a story about a woman who was riding on the train and received a call from her boss asking her to contact someone.  Overwhelmed with yet another task to complete, she happened to look up from her phone, gaze down the aisle of the train car, and to her dismay see the person she was asked to contact. A perfect example of letting the world come to you.  

Oftentimes as college students I think we are taught to be proactive, network, and seek out great resume building experiences, but I also think it is so incredibly important to let opportunities come to you.  While I believe that taking those actionary measures yourself is crucial, I am learning that being patient can also lead me to paths I may not have considered.  Being a young professional is no easy task and navigating the workforce can be difficult when some of us are still grappling with what we envision our future career to look like.  

At the ripe age of 18, we are asked to determine a major that consequently may determine our future career and the rest of our lives. While college is not the path that all high school graduates take, there is still an expectation that future plans be decided on.  Pressure to choose a discipline that will be fruitful and rewarding, the fear of losing interest, and the expectations to succeed at a high level have real effects on a young person. And yes, I understand that students have an opportunity to change their majors if they do not see themselves working in that field in the future.  Truthfully, I was one of those students.  The uncertainty that looms entering college can still exist getting ready to leave college. 

Fast forward two years later after one major change and as I enter my senior year of college, the decisions I have to make as a soon-to-be graduate are quite similar to the ones I had to make when I was navigating the college space.  The question is now – what do you really want to do with your life? I contemplate this question quite often and I get frustrated because the questions do not end there.  The internal dialogue I have with myself comes with bouts of uncertainty, periods of hope, and sometimes feelings of content.  However, I face the same challenge I did entering the workforce as I did entering college which is defining what I want to do.  

At the nucleus of the CAPS fellow program and the Institute of Leadership and Service is the idea of defining one’s purpose and calling.  I think this program has been such a formative experience for me in that I have been able to define partially what I want to do in life.  While those plans are still partially unexplored on top of being uncertain, I gained a knowledge of an industry that I otherwise would not have had the opportunity to and for that I am grateful.  I realized that it is okay to not be consumed with what my next step will be and to not constantly search for what I think I need.  Maybe what I actually need is to just let the world come to me and take a moment to look up and see if what I need is actually a train car away.  

We think we know what we want, but the world is actually showing us what we need.  At a young age, our future is already being played out in front of us and it is up to us to decide what road we want to take, but I think it is important to look up and look around to see what it is we actually need to move forward.