What am I doing?

My birthday is in a few weeks. I'll be turning 25. I was thinking about this as I was driving to Provo the other day for a birthday party for a dear friend. The more I thought about it, the more I began to experience something like a quarter life crisis. 

I'm turning 25. In another five years, I'll be 30. 30 seems like such an epic age. What do I want my life to be like in five years? Do I want to still be working at the Herald Journal? Do I want to be working at a bigger newspaper? Do I want to live somewhere bigger? Do I want to own a house or a really nice condo? Do I want to be married or in a serious relationship? Do I want kids? What do I want out of my life? Needless to say, I began to panic and freak out a bit. 

The truth is I don't know I'm doing or what I'll want to be doing in five years. I've been so focused on the most recent aspects of my life (graduating from college and getting a job) that I haven't given much thought to the next few years. 

The other day a friend of mine asked me how long I plan on staying at the Herald Journal before moving on to a bigger paper and then end up at the New York Times. I kind of laughed the idea off. I mean, I've dreamed about working at something like the New York Times but I've never really seriously considered it. I told this to another friend of mine and he said that if anyone is going to end up there, it would be me, that I was tenacious and plucky enough to do it. 

Now, granted, he could have just been being nice. He is a nice fellow despite what folks may say. But this only increased my quarter life crisis thought process. What if I do want to end up at the New York Times? The kind of journalism I enjoy the most and get the most satisfaction out of is investigative type stuff, exposing corruption or wrong doing and bringing attention to causes or plights that deserve attention. And as much as I love my job right now, it doesn't offer many opportunities for that type of work. And while I love my job and love getting up in the morning to do it, is it something that I want to be doing in five years? 

I'm coming slowly to the conclusion that I don't think I'll ever really know what I'm doing with my life. I'll perpetually be in a state of ricocheting in this thing we call existence, trying to force it to make sense and squeeze happiness out of it. And I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing. It's just semi-frustrating for a person like me who generally likes to have a plan. 

Trouble is life tends to be far more complicated and unpredictable to have solid plans or even tentative plans. It's all just wibbly-wobbly. 

So I don't know where I'm going to be in five years or 10 years or 50 years.  And I'm not sure how I should feel about that quite yet. I'll keep you posted though. 

Love you.

Mean it.