figure out what i want to do with my life

I don’t know what to do! I’m trying to decide what to do with my life but really struggling with making decisions at the moment. And I have to make some decisions.

I always wanted to be a writer. Writing was what I loved and what I was best at. I moved abroad 8 years ago, studied at university and did really well. Afterwards I struggled with unemployment and it really ruined my confidence – I stopped writing and I haven’t written much since. That was 2 years ago. Eventually I ended up in an admin job (which I really liked, but I didn’t really get to use my degree).

This summer, I moved back to my home country to be closer to my family and have a think about the future. I regretted it immediately – I want to go back. However, I didn’t want the move back to be for nothing, so I started to apply for temporary jobs, thinking I’d save up some money and leave again after Christmas.

Now, I’m once again struggling to find a job, even a temporary one, but I’ve been offered a place on an MA in journalism in my home country. I really want to go back and would prefer to study there but it’s soo expensive. Now I don’t know whether to take this chance to study to become a journalist, or to continue to try and get a temporary job and then move back (after Christmas) like I’ve planned? I don’t want to stay here, but this is a good chance to get an MA without getting into much more debt.

I’m so confused. Help!

I am trying to think about what job/career/education I would want if anything was possible, if anything I ever tried would go exactly as planned, easily. If any degree I did would guarantee to lead to the job I wanted. If lack of confidence, fear or worry about money didn’t exist. In a perfect life, in a perfect world.

They say that the answer to this question is what you should aim your real-life efforts towards, that it’s what you really, truly want.

I’m at a crossroad of sorts. It’s likely that the choices I make in 2010 could make a large inpact on my future, maybe even on the course of the rest of my life. I know, it sounds dramatic. And I guess any choice, any situation, could change the rest of your life dramatically. But this is different. It’ll be a concious decision and a big change whatever I choose.
I need to go somewhere else, do something else. And I will have to make the decision on my own, based on what I want (something I am unused to). To move back home where I’d be able to see my family often or to stay in the country I love? To get a new job or to go back to university?

I’m scared.

“Our biggest fear is not that we are inadequate…it is that we are powerful beyond measure.” Marianne Williamson

And how true that is. I can’t decide what to do with my life. Thinking about where I want to be in five years I freeze up, I cry, I feel upset and worried, I feel stupid for not knowing and for being unable to commit to any life plan. And mainly because I know I have soo much to give, soo much to share with the world. I could do anything with my life, I have everything going for me, but I don’t know what I WANT, so I do nothing…and so feel horrible about it, and myself.

The truth is, I am much better, much smarter, much more capable than I tend to think…and that scares the s**t out of me!!

The second I thought it I knew it was a true. I want to work with people, information and to at least occasionally use my writing. That’s what I really want. Now ‘all’ I have to do is come up with a more specific job title…easier said than done of course.

Maybe it’s not so much what I want to do with the rest of my life as what I want to do with the next few years? I think the fact that I think I have to choose a career rather than a job is what is parlysing me, making me choose nothing at all. But any job, any new skills, any new experience would move me forward…worrying about finding what I want to do with the rest of my life does not.
So then…what do I want to do with the next year/next few years? To be honest, I don’t know the answer to that question either. But atleast it seems more managable.

I have no idea anymore. I keep coming up with jobs/careers/studies, getting really excited for a day or so then completely discarding them the next. I don’t want to stay in some random job for the rest of my life, I want to do something meaningful, I want a job I really enjoy. But I have no idea what job that would be!!
The only thing I really, really want to do with my life is have kids. But how will that ever happen if I don’t have a job? And I don’t want to become a housewife, I want a career. Or something. A meaningful job anyway.

It just hit me. What the heck am I doing spending my days cleaning, cooking, choosing things after whether they’ll suit my CV, looking for a ‘respectable job’, hoping to get a nice flat soon? These are the things I’ll be doing for the rest of my life!
I am only 24, this is the time to have fun, dress crazy, challenge myself and explore the world! My mum has always said doing whatever you want, crazy thing, is fine til you’re 25, after that you’re ‘supposed’ to start thinking properly about your future. Ah well, I am not 25 yet (eh, 3 months to go…)

When I think about what I want to do with my life, careerwise, all I can come up with is an insane combination of ‘unrealistic’ jobs that require a lot more studying / debt and a huge amount of ambition and drive, or the opposite; unqualified jobs with bad pay that I could have easily got years ago, without my degree. Preferably, I want to combine them too, get the ‘best of both worlds’. Despite the fact that that would be absolutely insane…who has ever heard of a PhD/writer/journalist/ ambassador also working as a personal trainer/receptionist/book store assistant/air hostess?
I just want to combine my love for writing, for text and language and reading with my love for working directly with people, the public. And that’s how these insane ideas are born.
And why do I feel this insane pull towards nursing, despite the fact that I know I really don’t like being around blood or ill people or anything like it?? Maybe because it’s in my blood…

I have been thinking a lot about this over the last year. What are my passions, my strengths, my interests…what do I want to do with my life?

I change opinion a lot. I always have. I come up with jobs I’d like to do, research them and ways to get there, then all of a sudden realise they are not what I want to do after all, not long-term. I know exactly what I don’t want to do…and to some extent I know what I want to do, at least what I like to do…but how to possibly find a job that combines those things, I don’t know.
I truly care about gender, immigration and equality/diversity issues and would love to somehow work with those questions. I know I want to work for a governmental or non-governmental organisation (charity), because I don’t want to be part of the commercial business world.

I want to write but not spend my days in an office; I want to work directly with people but not in big groups; I want to help/advise people but about what I do not know; I want to work sensible hours but most careers with 9-5 are office work, which, again, I don’t want to do; I want to make a difference, change things, truly do something meaningful but not spend all my life and time working. Not going to happen is it?

I’d love any ideas, advice or comments.