My roommate and I, over homemade cappuccinos and freshly baked muffins on Saturday morning, had a brief discussion on our conflicted feelings about our career paths. Depending on our mood, time of the month and amount of caffeine we’ve had, our perspective about our place on our career path changes. There are two basic attitudes we have. The first is the good days. When we are like, I love being young! Being in your early 20’s is aw-some because we can really direct our career path wherever we choose and finding this path is exhilarating and exactly what we daydreamed about in our boring university courses. We are putting one foot in front of another, excited to see where we land.

The other is when we aren’t eating desserts to shed some pounds, had an exhausting day and the dog is acting up. It’s when we feel so stressed and tired just thinking about the next years in our career. We have a desire to move around and work hard, yet we are still working to prove to everyone that we are capable. We get frustrated and ask, “Why am I not there yet?” Keep in mind we are both 23, a fresh 2 years out of college and both realized our career passions later in our college life. Our mentors, parents and bosses all say that we will have an enticing path ahead of us, but on these particular days we don’t buy it. We get frustrated not knowing exactly what it is we want to do. We’ve narrowed it down to an industry, shouldn’t that be enough? What if we take a wrong job, in the wrong city for the wrong company and completely ruin our chance to be something great and realize our full potential. What if…we fail.

On this particular, caffeinated morning at Ascension Coffee I am feeling the first. Despite my dog being mauled by a pit bull on an early run, the depressing look at my bank account after purchasing my ticket to Europe (can I even really complain about that?) and the grotesque burn on my chin from my curling iron, I am feeling optimistic. Tomorrow might be another story (it will be a Monday after all), so I thought I should take note of this optimism and positive energy so that maybe when I’m feeling a little down I can look back. And hopefully think to myself, “I was so right yesterday.” I can choose to revel in the uncertainty of my future, take a nice long sip of my coffee and continue to daydream, work hard and set goals.

First and second image  both found on Pinterest.