COLUMN: Junior stops waiting and paves future

Sometimes I really can’t tell if I’m depressed or just a college student.

The majority of the time, it’s either my pathological fear of failure or my small bladder that coaxes me out of bed in the morning. Other times it’s at least 45 minutes of scrolling through the puppies tag on Instagram before I have the will to sit up. Motivation is something I wish I had, but it’s just barely too much work to attain — not unlike the dish of chocolate I strategically pushed out of arms reach from my bed. How have I run out of steam so early in the year when I don’t even have senioritis to blame?

Since I spent most of this Saturday in bed, I’ve come up with a few theories. The first is that I’m too comfortable. I’ve got my own room in an apartment with fun and courteous roommates. My classes are going pretty well. Even my occasionally intoxicated neighbors quiet down at a reasonable hour. There’s nothing to keep me on my toes. This is close, but not quite right.

My second theory: I’m dreading any sort of work, because it’s clearer now than ever before that what I’m doing here is — in theory — leading up to an actual job and life as an adult. Just typing that sentence made me nervous, so I’m pretty sure theory number two is the winner.

Some people look to the future, laugh gallantly and sally forth into the unknown. People like me look to the future, giggle nervously and then fall over like a startled goat. When I was younger, I never really questioned that I’d go to college, a luxury I can now fully appreciate.

Now that I’m more than halfway done with college, the next step is an unknown doozy. Work force? Grad school? Playing bongos on the side of the road for spare change? Am I behind on preparing for one when I’m not even sure which it will be? I haven’t played bongos in years.

It’s possible that the same pathological fear of failure that keeps me from skipping classes altogether is the very thing keeping me a blanketed burrito of sadness in my bed. It’s pretty hard for me to fail school if I go to class, and it’s pretty hard to fail life if I don’t go out and live it.

So while that little epiphany is all well and good, I’m still not terribly sure what to do about it. I guess that’s what a lack of motivation will do. Hopefully, after a little more rest and maybe some caffeine, something will click in my brain and I’ll be able to hop to it again. If not, I’ll try again tomorrow.

The future is going to come whether I’m out of bed or not. Motivation or no — it will come. So maybe I need to take a cue from those of us who can laugh gallantly in the face of the unknown instead of hiding behind Bagel Bites and Netflix. Maybe it’s time to stop waiting for the future to come to me. It’s time to start paving the way for my journey forward. It’s time to decide just what it is I want and how I’m going to get it.

Just after one more page of puppy pictures.