Responing to Uncertainity

So I have been having many conversations with different folks in my generation that are really unsure with what the future holds for them, I being one of them realize that many of us who are just graduating college, getting out of volunteer corp programs and whatnot face the daunting task of trying to figure out where we stand amongst the world of opportunities that are available to young people.

It seems that were supposed to have everything figured out when we graduate from college or soon there after, have a plan to attend a masters degree program or whatnot. Maybe get a job doing something that we hate, where do we fit in? With tons of money in college debt many of us our constrained to finding something that will allow us to alleviate that or defer it.

I am writing this to assure all of us who feel crippled by the multitude of choice that is available at this time in our lives. My mom, in a letter wrote that she want you to make sound decisions so that my life would be easier than hers, that she and my dad made mistakes and could have made their lives easier. But is that the real goal, is a life that is easy neccessairly the way in which we want to go? In life it seems like there must be some sort of struggle in order to survive. Last Sunday, my pastor told the story of a botanist who was studying the emperor butterfly attempt to escape from its cocoon to transform. Realizing the butterfly's struggle, the botanist assisted the butterfly by taking a scalpel and cutting open the cocoon. The butterfly opened its wings for the first time and immediately feel dead, apparently through the struggle of opening the cocoon produces the juices needed for a butterfly to survive.

I think a lot of things in life are like that, we learn through the struggle and without the struggle we never learn. Is there a right or a wrong path, who knows? Will the decisions that we make now ultimately affect the rest of our lives... yeah maybe... to some extent... but a path toward meaning does not come through an established path. If anything, it comes through a creative one.

So we must ask ourselves, which is the path that we are looking for? The easy one or the other one? Maybe a mix of both, maybe a little of each one... but in the end know that we will be okay and survive this time of liminality, that we will find meaning and it will be great!