Choose the Path Less Traveled on and You Mess Up Your Google Maps Directions to Success

The idea of having my whole life ahead of me has never been a comfort to me. I always hear it when I talk about how I don't know what to do with my life, and a much wiser, more experienced, and youth-challenged human being will let me know that it's alright because I have so much time to decide.

I may only be 19 years old, but it seems to be the first and foremost duty of every adult figure that I know to remind me again and again that I need to figure out my life. Decide a "life goal," as my dad would say.

The phrase "life goal" drives me crazy. I may have a wide variety of interests, but that's just the thing. My inventory of activities, hobbies, or even things that can translate well over to a lifelong career, is full of conflicting ideas. It's hard to pick just one. I don't know how comfortable I would be doing one job for the rest of my life, unless that job is one that morphs regularly as I go along.

When I asked some other kids in my age group how they decided what they currently say they want to do, they all seemed to use the following approach:

1. Pick a concrete trait. ("I want to help people.")
2. Translate that trait into a career path. ("I want to become a nurse.")
3. Choose a degree, college, major, etc. that helps that career become a reality.

When I express my indecision of a life goal, other people so willingly put a trait of mine into career language for me.

"You love languages! Get an English degree! Be a writer for a living!"

"You are really into YouTube and all that. Why not be a director/actress/screenwriter/producer? There are degrees for that, right?"

"You always joke about marketing and come up with good ideas for commercials and stuff like that. Go into communications!"

The problem with this process, for me, is that picking out a single trait and then basing your entire college life and beyond on that trait seems to be naive. I don't think I'd be happy doing any of those jobs. I don't think that picking your life path that way necessarily is what people think it is. Now, seeing as people have been doing this for years, and successfully at that, I doubt that I've come across some hidden secret. Maybe this is why people change their majors so often.

But it brings me to a horrible conundrum. How do I figure out what I want to do when none of the dominant traits in my personality translate to a career path that I would find myself happy in?

Or perhaps, as usual, I've set myself up to fail without even trying. Maybe when I find a way to start going to college again, I'll actually throw myself into some possible majors before deciding it's not for me. All the more reason to stay in California now that I've moved myself over - there are so many more opportunities here, perhaps even for my seemingly infinite supplies of negativity.