What am I doing?

That's a question that I've been asking myself a lot lately.

During the past few weeks I've been faced with a lot of questions about my future.

The number of times I've been asked the question ' So what do you want to do when you graduate' in the past month is alarming. Alarming because I have no idea.

Lately my life has assumed an extremely regular pattern: School, work, study, overdose on caffeine, sleep and repeat. Sure, I mix other interests into my week as much as I can but I feel like my life is kind of like a sprint on loop- I'm always out of breath, but the race doesn't seem to end and no matter how much I want to, I can't stop or I'll get left behind.

In our parents generation, money, education and career success were the most meaningful parts of life. But it seems like for our generation its not enough - we all want more: marriages that last, jobs that bring satisfaction, lives that are exciting.

Sometimes I wonder if this is selfish - if we should be satisfied with having what our parents wanted and if shouldn't try to have it all.

But as the time before graduation slowly gets shorter - I need to start making some hard decisions. Do I follow the dreams for my life that I've had ever since I can remember - the dreams that maybe aren't my own but are my parents, and teachers and family's goals for my life? Or do I find my own dream? And how do I even know what I want?

I find that a lot of times we put so much distance between ourselves and what we want because we're afraid that once we get closer it won't be as good as we'd hoped - or worse that we won't be able to make it work.

There's a quote from Good Will Hunting that I really liked - it's when Will (Matt Damon) is talking to Sean (Robin Williams) about Skylar (the girl he liked)

Will: ... but this girl is like, you know, beautiful. She's smart. She's funny. She's different from most of the girls I've been with.

Sean: So, call her up, Romeo.

Will: Why? So I can realize she's not that smart, that she's boring? You know? I mean...this girl is like perfect right now, I don't want to ruin that.

Sean: Maybe you're perfect right now. Maybe you don't want to ruin that. I think that's a super philosophy, Will, that way you can go through your entire life without ever having to really know anybody...

Maybe it's not a perfect connection to what I'm talking about but I think that sometimes everyone's like Will - we have this ideal picture of something that we want: whether it's a career, a hobby, a guy (or girl)... and we're afraid to get close because either it won't measure up to the perfect picture in our head or somehow our own imperfection will mess things up.

I'm definitely guilty of living like that and I think it's a terrible way to live - because if we always play it safe we're going to wake up some day and we'll realize that we lost 10 years of our life to a routine.