How To: Become Lost and Confused

How To: Become Lost and Confused

Remember when you were young? About five or six years old and you wanted to be a graceful ballerina, or to save people by becoming the best doctor in the world, oh better yet use your super strength to save the planet from all of the bad guys. Remember how you were so excited and trained everyday, twirling around your living room saving your favorite teddy bear with good ol’ CPR and a needle to the shoulder. And you can’t forget all of your superhero training.

Suddenly, when you were 10 you decided you were going to be a pro skateboarder after seeing some kid do a kickflip or open up a doggy daycare. Then in middle school you got serious and you finally decided what you really wanted to do with your life, become a top grade lawyer after watching one too many episodes of Law and Order. Decision made you, dedicated the following six years to becoming the top student in your graduating class, volunteering for community service hours, and slaving your way to valedictorian at graduation.

You were so proud of yourself, things were going perfect and everything was on track, you had even made it through your first two semesters of college, getting all of the fun stuff out of the way. A music course here, and a visual arts class there. It was a blast, but then things changed and here you are.

You’re vigorously rubbing your eye in an effort to keep from zoning out in the middle of your History of Justice lecture. You glance around to make sure no one witnessed you slip into the abyss of your mind. No one seems to have noticed so you spend the next 45 minutes dozing off and jerking yourself awake.

You attend the rest of your classes and repeat the process; doze, inspect, doze some more. Until finally you get to your dorm and scarf down a packet of ramen before diving into the bed that’s been screaming your name since you opened your eyes this morning. But you decide to be good and whip out your textbook, only you don’t get very much studying done.

As a matter of fact, you open your eyes and find yourself face planted on “Chapter 32: Interrogation Techniques” , with a concerning amount of drool puddled in the center of the page. So much for doing some homework. Agitated and annoyed with yourself for doing this once again you close your textbook and make your way to your cluttered desk and turn on your laptop. A good Lifetime movie always turns your day around.

As you enjoy the movie you start thinking of different scenarios that could unfold, and critiquing the character development, and questions why 90% of them lack any semblance of common sense. You begin to think of ways that you improve the story, make things even better somehow when an idea pops into your magnificent brain. What if you became a screenwriter, law school clearly isn’t for you. You can barely make it through your classes awake and would rather watch paint dry than suffer through any of the assignments. So why not quit while you're ahead and save yourself the pain and money of making a decision that would ultimately ruin your life.

Yeah you change your mind and make a plan to switch majors immediately, plus you’ve always excelled at storytelling, so why not get paid doing it.

You change your major the very next day and it’s the best choice you’ve made since deciding to stop wearing Dora the Explorer T-shirts. From then on you don’t pass out in the middle of doing your homework and you are constantly sharing your screenplays in class. Then one day you have to perform one and you give the best performance of your life, it’s Oscar worthy no doubt. So you question why you're trying to be a screenwriter when you have star quality, a talent like yours shouldn’t go to waste .

Deep in thought you make your way back to your door and clear the monstrosity that’s piled on top of your bed. Alright, what do you need to do to take this acting thing to the next level? Change majors again? Maybe add a few theater electives to your schedule instead? Do you even really want to be an actress?

Letting out a heavy sigh you fall back onto your awaiting bed and something catches your eye. Your Criminal Justice textbook, the same one you passed out on only a few months ago. Staring at it, feelings rush back to you. You kind miss waking up at 2 in the morning having no recollection of the last 2 sentences you read. And it feels a little weird being active in class.

But you shake your head, you decide that you're going to be a screenwriter and that’s that, or wait do you want to be an actress? Maybe you jumped the gun too soon and should have just stuck with your studies for law school. But this wasn’t for you, or was it?

Now your brain hurts and you have no idea what is going on. Congratulations you have officially become last and confused.