Choose Your Own Adventure

When I was three, I was concerned only with picking out which candy I want Mom to buy for me. In gradeschool, I was concerned with picking out my playmates, my favorite Barbie doll, and my favorite dress. In highschool, I was concerned with the kind of identity that I want to project, the clubs that can enhance my personality, the kind of friends I want to have. In college, it was choosing the right organization, the right course, and the best professors. It was also about choosing what to do after graduation. Then, after graduation, it was choosing between going to law school and working. I chose the latter.

From the time I was able to understand things, choices were handed down to me no matter how important or mundane it was. It felt like I was a character in a choose your own adventure book where you can see what happens if you choose a or b or c...the only difference is that in real life choose your own adventure, choosing one means you'll be left wondering what might have happened to you if you had chosen the other. I was never been able to go back to the start of the story and choose another path again. I think I speak for every one on this. Yet, in every decision I make, I keep in mind to have no regrets.

At 22, I know I made some bad choices especially in the men that I fall in love with (no pun intended..really..) My love for spontainety or getting myself into spur-of-the-moment things got me in trouble at one point or another. Sometimes my tactless mouth unintentionally hurt people I cared about. My lack of self-discipline and momentary depressions led me to gain more pounds rather than lose it. My choice to be really independent has led me to forget some values I held dearly. Admittedly, there is no one to blame but me and my quest to find my purpose in life.

I read this article entitled "Being Twenty-something" forwarded to me by a good friend, and it says that people my age are at their best and worst of times. It's true. I feel that I am at that point in my life where one minute I am laughing at a silly joke and then another I am ranting about the load at work, and sometimes there are moments where I feel like I am going in circles, going nowhere, trying to find my purpose in life.

Some say take my time, some say it'll pass...and I know it will...but for now the greatest challenge is choosing my own adventure and whatever was planned for me, making me, the heroine, a victor in the end. After all, isn't that what we all want?

For the people who taught me to believe in myself...