I’ve finally hit that scary point in
the trip where I am ready to go home to see my family and have all the comforts
of life back, but at the same exact time I feel like I never want to leave this
place. Someone once asked me if I ever was in a moment that I knew I would miss
before I even left it, and at the time I wasn’t quite sure I knew what they
were talking about. However now that is exactly how I feel. I keep finding
myself in places or experiencing things that I know when I am home I am going
to miss. I need to continue to try and be present while I am here, because even
though I know this month is going to fly by, I know it has so much potential to
be the most incredible month. It is the weirdest feeling to know once I am home
I am going to want to be back here, but at the same time have points in my day
where I am here and I wish I were home.
Being here, thinking about going
home, and being surrounded by tons of extremely driven people has also made me
think a lot about my future. I have always had the mentality that I could do a
lot of things in life as a career and be happy doing them. However, since being
here, I have thought much more in depth to the kind of work I would like the
world to take me into. Someone the other day asked me what the one thing I was
really passionate about was, to which I immediately responded, women’s
empowerment. While I was talking to my mom about summer jobs, on a separate
occasion, this topic also came up about what I was actually passionate about and
how weird it is going to be to go from being here doing the kind of work I
really care about to going back home to a summer job that is “practical”. This
is the hard part about being in college, not having tons of experience, and
also not having the ability to ‘work for free’. Everyone in our society has
this expectation for people my age. Freshman year summer you work a minimum
wage job, the following summer a higher paying job or maybe an internship if
you’re lucky, then junior year definitely an internship at some well known
impressive company, and then poof senior year you’re supposed to come out of
college with a job and place to live all lined up. This would be great, but add
on top of that wanting to do something you actually enjoy, something that actually
makes a difference in this world? It seems like the toughest uphill battle to
meet others expectations while meeting your own expectation of happiness and
being able to save some sort of money for once you’re really on your own.
In many ways I envy South Africans
in their lack of urgency toward their future lives. Yes everyone here has goals
just like in the states, but they aren’t expected to have their whole future
laid out by the time they are in the 5th grade. The workforce in
Cape Town is much more laid back and people are much more strongly encouraged
to follow the paths that they are passionate about, not just the one with the
biggest dollar sign at the end of the road. I really hope that as I grow older,
I can keep part of what I have seen and learned here with me when it comes to
their work mentalities. For now, I hope that this summer I can somehow find
that mix between practicality when it comes to making money, but also doing
something that makes my heart sing. Being here and realizing how much I want to
work in the nonprofit sector, with inspiring people, and with a company that
allows me to travel has been such a gift. While I was talking to my mom she
pointed out that not everyone has that passion, or would be willing to travel,
etc. I would hate for that realization and desire to be set aside once I am
back in the states surrounded by people who would just call me a ‘daydreamer’.
No comments:
Post a Comment