To Infinity and Beyond

Every night for the past few months, I would lie in bed looking up at the faint glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling, wondering. Where will I be next year? Will I find what I’m looking for? When making decisions, I act impulsively—much to the disdain of my mother, I follow gut instinct instead of thinking methodically. However, I realized that each decision would open a different path that would alter the course of my life. It’s an enormous pressure to place on a teenager, especially one whose indecisiveness extends to even the most trivial of matters, including breakfast options and nail polish color.
Seven months ago, I started this column and vented my frustrations about college, mostly about the insecurities I felt with the near future. Perhaps I’d take the biggest risk of my life and board a train to New York, or stay local and come home every weekend. With mere weeks until graduation and some concrete options to consider, I must admit that in the darkness of my bedroom, I still don’t really know. I feared regret, but then I started to wonder: How would we ever really know? Wasn’t the worst regret of all, knowing that you didn’t risk enough to possibly have regrets? How would I know if I would wind up at the right place? Was intuition enough?
These questions befuddled me, as I watched on enviously as friends committed without batting an eyelash as I agonized and waited for “signs”—a cloud in the shape of a college mascot, an advertisement on a passing bus. And then it struck me, like an asteroid crashing through my bedroom universe. There is no guaranteed path to success and no mystical force that will help make these life-changing decisions easier. It’s a combination of intuition, comfort, excitement and practicality. By the time this article comes out, I’ll be forced to know. Though there are so many factors and occurrences that we do not have any control over, I would like to think that wherever I end up—it’s because it was written in the stars and at least we can determine our own attitudes there.

Yvonne Lee,
Editor in Chief