On September 4, 2013 I turned 21. To be quite honest, it was the first time in my adult life I actually felt like an adult, like any substantial amount of time had gone past, and that the decisions I make now are actually going to mean anything in the long run. I realized this was my last "momentous birthday" and proceeded to have what you might call a quarter life crisis. It occurred to me during this quarter life crisis-am I too comfortable? Am I taking advantage of every opportunity life has to offer? After all, I might be dead soon. I once watched Steve Jobs give a speech at a commencement ceremony in a TED video. He said he wakes up every morning and asks himself something to the effect of: "“If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I’m about to do today?”
This idea of living before your dead, seizing the day, "carpe diem," is something I've thought about many times before, and something I believe I will continue to think about every single day until I actually am dead. Hopefully, when that day comes, I will be able to say that I did everything I wanted to do and became everything I was capable of becoming. The more I get into meditation, live a balanced life, and learn to truly live in the present moment, the more I realize how much time I've wasted living in the past and the future, and how often we as people neglect the present. So now I ask myself, If today were indeed the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am doing day? Well, the answer has been no one too many days in a row now.
I am lucky, I am so lucky. I have a tremendous support system and incredible friends and family. I go to a fantastic research University in the fantastic city of Salt Lake. At 21 I've had the pleasure of conducting research and dissemination in Ghana, West Africa and northern India. I've had incredible leadership opportunities. For the most part, I have very few complaints. However, I'm ready for something new. To be somewhere new, to experience something new, to better myself and challenge every aspect of my life. My "new years resolution," I guess you could call it, is to get out of my comfort zone. Well...packing up all my belongings, selling my car, and moving to the huge city of Washington DC, which I have never actually even been to before, and starting an internship in a company full of people I had never met was pretty uncomfortable at first. I am so lucky in that I have fantastic roommates, my co-workers are extremely friendly, and I have yet to be lost on the metro. Our apartments are probably the nicest place I have ever lived since moving out of my parents home, I love the vibe of the city, I love that there are so many places I have yet to see and I love this challenge.
As I was riding the metro to my first day at my internship, I found myself getting nervous, extremely nervous. Can I actually do this? Do I have what it takes? Do I even know anything? I can definitely say I am getting out my comfort zone, I finally feel challenged again. Today I have lived in Washington, DC for exactly one week and have four months to go. I am not sure how this will all turn out. I am not sure where I will be living when this comes to an end. I am not sure if I will change my mind about my career, my graduate education, my undergraduate education, or what I want to do day in and day out for the rest of my life. All I know is that so many doors are opening and I am finally walking through them without looking back.
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