I'm a worrier. I'm a planner and a worrier to the n'th degree. If there were awards for people who spent the most time thinking and planning for their future, I'd be solidly in the running.
Not that I think it's all a bad thing. I guess I could use less of the worrying, but the planning really has gotten me quite far and has served me well. I don't know if I could have accepted so many of the opportunities presented to me during undergrad if I hadn't planned and worked hard to get me to the place where I had the necessary freedom and skills to accept.
However, while in Chicago I met a new friend who gave me a huge gift. And that gift was the phrase "solvitur ambulando."
"It is solved by walking."
"Problems are solved and/or made clear only by moving forward in practical action."
Nothing in life is reached by planning alone. There's a danger of dreaming and ideating and planning so much that you never put down the pen and start doing. And you'll only get there by doing. Action. Movement. Progress.
So if I don't know where I'm going from here, perhaps the best thing to do is just start walking. Look at the things I am passionate about -- writing, painting, photography, film -- and follow those paths. Tell stories. Share paintings. Be creative.
If I am adamantly following my passions and strengthening my skills in those areas, then the opportunities will follow from there. That I believe wholeheartedly.
It's just that letting go of my iron-fisted control over my future plans will be difficult. It will take a strength and determination that I'm not sure I have.
But I guess, as in all things, solvitur ambulando.
Time to start walking.
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