I'm wandering around without much of a plan. And that's okay.

The ironic thing about the university life is that despite the relatively low percentage of people who actually go on to have a job in which they can apply their major, you're supposed to have a definitive plan of some sort along the way, "ideally" just as you're starting your freshman year. Those who can't really decide on what to major in and, by supposed extension, what direction they want their life to take are able to be open option, usually until junior year, but the point is that by the time you put on that graduation cap, you're supposed to have had some revelation about how you want to lead your life and then work towards it accordingly. That's fine and dandy for the idealists who happen to believe that everything will work 100 percent of the time and that they won't run into major obstacles. I, on the hand, subscribe to a different school of thought, one which only has just enough of a plan so I have some sense of direction without feeling lost, but with enough flexibility so that the details themselves are all penciled in and not set in stone. There's just something to be said for merely abiding by the ebb and flow of life until you know when the right opportunities appear that need your own intervention.

With a major like Japanese, a lot of people have asked me what I exactly inted to use it for after I graduate from CU. Assuming that I don't tell them flat out that I have no set graduation date and that I am in fact okay with going over four years for my education, my answers vary. Sometimes I want to teach English over there. Sometimes I want to do work for a creative company, ideally writing manga or designing games. Sometimes I just want to be a TA for a while like good old (but very young) sensei. The point behind having such a varied stable of answers is simple: I picked Japanese as my major so that I could be extremely flexible, taking on occupations that both appeal to me and are attainable in times of economic downturns. Picking a foreign language as a major allows you to learn another manner in which to express yourself as a human being, an invaluable skill which has numerous applications. It may not train me to enter any one field, but being able to communicate with most anybody who speaks the language more than makes up for it. You learn how to connect with other people from a variety of backgrounds and, in turn, even if you enter a field you may not have the most knowledge about, an added language can still open those doors. If nothing else, an additional tongue on the resume has nothing but benefits, for its usefulness does not sway with political climates or economic conditions; people will always need to communicate with each other and to that end, an additional language will inevitably come in handy some how.

That isn't to say that there is anything wrong with specializing in something more specific; indeed, there are other skills besides knowing a language one can pick up which has universal applications as well. What I ultimately mean to convey is that a lack of specificity in your life's plan can also be highly beneficial as well. If you allow yourself to be open to more than one path, then the detours don't necessarily become so detrimental, if at all. They instead become tangents and should you choose to continue down them, whether it's for curiosity's sake or for any other reason, sometimes opens up wonderfully unexpected opportunities. 

As a personal example, my school, the University of Colorado at Boulder, was not my first choice, but rather a backup. During the application season in the fall of 2007, I really longed to attend the University of Chicago. A quirky, but extremely respected school, it seemed to be the sort of place which would accent my sensibilities quite nicely. When I got rejected from there because of space issues, however, it turned out to be a really good thing; the subsequent acceptance to CU Boulder enabled me to actually join an educational community which could better foster my interests. Sure, there might be aspects of the populace I would come to have problems with, but when considering that I actually ended up in arguably the school for western/midwestern students longing to learn Japan, I don't bemoan the rejection from Chicago at all, for, in the end, it enabled me to connect to a bunch of like-minded people I came to adore and just realize how deep my passion for the Japanese language runs. And that was all because a denial letter forced me to go on a tangent of sorts.

After that point of getting into CU Boulder, however, I've been improvising what I want to do with my life as I go. I have to say it's worked out pretty well so far. Real independence like moving out to a new town without having the family in tow has done wonders for helping me understand myself even better than before. When you have no specific direction you want to go besides forward, you open yourself up to plenty of opportunities to grow as a person without putting up any real limitations whatsoever. The decision to study abroad earlier than expected this summer, for example, proved to myself that I really do have the dedication to devote multiple months of my life to making something happen if I genuinely want it. From late night essay-writing sessions to numerous budget-crunchings at every turn, it's shown me a side of myself which embraces dedication even amidst the uncertainty of the end result. All because I decided one afternoon to do something on a whim and see where it led me to in the end.

The power of compulsive human thinking really is a force to be reckoned with.

In the end, while it's good to have a plan, I think it can be best for one's own mental health if not everything has to definitively happen. Nothing that goes wrong ever really results in the end; it's life. It's always in the present and so you're always free to dictate and change its course when necessary. That's the beauty of just improvising life as you go; if you find something you really love you can keep on going that way contentedly, but if not, shifting towards a different horizon also does no harm either. I can't seriously answer those questions which ask where I think I'll be in five years from now. I don't want to know because half of the surprises in life come from the unexpected. I'll get to that point when I get to that point, but now, all I care about is whether I like where I'm going or not. And so far, that philosophy hasn't failed me once.