The Future

You know, if I had a penny for every time I've heard the phrase "Enjoy yourself; these are the best years of your life," in the past few weeks, my bank account would be much less upset with me. People seem to think it's an encouraging, thought-provoking thing to say, but I certainly don't think so. What do you mean, that it's downhill from here? That once University is over, the shit hits the fan? That I'll never achieve anything in my life more than a degree? That when (if *gulp*) I'm seventy, looking around at a room full of children and grandchildren, I'll be thinking, "Well, it's not Uni, is it?"

I know that these people are just trying to make me appreciate the fact that, for the first and potentially last time in my life, I'm completely independent with virtually no responsibilities to other people; free to go where I want, do what I like, get up when I feel like it and spend my time enjoying myself. But is that all there is to life? I don't think so.

Because, as much as I'm enjoying myself here - it seriously is fantastic to have complete freedom and control of myself and my own life for the first time - I don't want my 18th-21st years to be the peak of my life. There are SO MANY things I want to do!

I want to spend a semester studying abroad, I want to spend a year travelling all the places I've loved on holiday, I want to get a novel published, I want to write a film script, I want to get married, I want to have kids (er, eventually), I want to get a job I love, I want to actually get through a Charles Dickens novel, I want to see Bon Jovi in concert, I want to meet people I admire. I know that life throws your curveballs and that all of those things either won't happen or won't happen in the way I imagined them, but that's what I want.

You can't predict your future, but you can hope for the best from it. I don't want my future to be limited to the next three years, and I know it won't be - I've got too much to do. Young people are supposed to dream about their future with rose-coloured glasses, and we should be allowed to do so - you never know what the future holds.