Stefan vs. Stefan

There is something unsettling about living a life that has no true forseeable goal, that isn't wonderfully structured. Such is life at university. At this point, it feels like courses are just a grab bag of academic must-knows, groping in the darkness towards that senior thesis.

I deal really well with structure and goals, but would also love to get on a plane with nothing but a ticket and the clothes on my back. There is something about the freedom of travel that appeals to my spirit: learning about another place and yourself simultaneously while, at the same time, no one has a preconceived notion of who you are. Embracing that sort of freedom appeals to me greatly: letting it all just happen, freely, wholly, awfully and wonderfully. It is being able to say "Whatever" and believing it for once.

The plan is to integrate structure into the non-structure, to take life by the reigns and ride it like a cowboy. Knowing that his mother is close behind him, looking every now and then as he ventures forth, the little two year old will explore more freely. Life keeps slapping me with the lesson that it is not straighforward. You are not wholly chaotic or wholly structured, at least I am not. If I have a foundation of structure and goals, I will be able to venture forth, confident and resilient. I will have my homebase. I know that I can't just pick up and go, I keep telling others that taking a year off would result in my never being able to come back. But I think I probably wouldn't be happy in that case either. I need to work within some sort of structure and then be able to just let go... It's all a matter of demystifying and believing.