The decision to have no decision

By Ronald Martinez •

From the time you enter school, a teacher, parent, guardian or friend has most likely asked the question, “What do you wanna be when you grow up?”

Maybe you answered Power Ranger, a superhero or a princess. Once you get a little older, you thought of police officer, firefighter, actor or doctor. Likely, as you grew, it was refined into something more specific. Enter high school, you start searching for colleges and the programs each offers.

But none of them caught your fancy. At least, that’s how it was for me. I had always switched what I wanted to do. Lawyer turned to detective, detective to forensic scientist, scientist to writer, and so on. I was always afraid of making the wrong choice, of going down a path I didn’t truly want. It wasn’t fun.

When it was time to apply for universities, it was a matter of picking whatever university looked cooler or would give me the biggest scholarship instead of looking for one with a program I was interested in. Of course, on the first day of your new college life, professors will still ask you the same old icebreakers you thought you got away from, including the dreaded question: “What’s your major?”

I hated that question from the start. It was isolating to be the only one to say “undecided.” Everyone seems to have their life figured out, and yet here I was, just cruising along, no real plan in place. Sure, I may have had an easier time compared to people who knew their majors, as I did general education credits. That meant being behind on my “success,” or at the very least, the societal definition of success.

“You’ll figure it out soon, don’t worry!”

Easier said than done. Those words didn’t really provide me much comfort. How soon? How much time do I have before it becomes too late?
At every turn, it feels like I was frozen in place while the world moved around me, able to feel the passage of every single second, yet unable to do anything as I struggled to answer the same question I was asked many years ago: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

From here, it seems being undecided is a curse in every way. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel, because if you can get past all the negative thoughts and emotions, if you just take it one day at a time, and take advantage of this chance to truly, truly explore, you will find it eventually. It might be later than everyone else. It might be something that not a lot of people choose to do. It might not even make that much money.

But you’ll be able to create your own definition of success and do something of which you can truly be proud, because you took the time to think it through instead of just picking something and going with it.

I’m no longer undecided, and I know what I want to do, thanks to good friends and shaking off any sort of expectations others may have of me.

I have decided to pursue game design, something which has been integral to my life ever since I was a little kid.

I know anyone else undecided will discover his or her destiny, as well. It will take time that you think you don’t have, but you do. We’re young, we’re smart, and we’re willing to go all in for something.

Ronald Martinez, sophomore, The Current’s reporter, plans to declare his major in the fall in informational technology and minor in music.