Everyone always says you find yourself in college. That it’s these next few years that shape who you will be to a greater degree than any other experiences. That I’m somehow supposed to make this grand transformation from an overwhelmed, albeit optimistic, first-year to someone who has her life together, who knows what she wants and has found that one thing she is willing to put her everything into.
It’s like one all-consuming math test, where all you have to do to pass is “find X.”
Find X. It seems easy at first, no tricks, no shortcuts, black scars shoved into neat little rows on white. But if you think about it hard enough, your eyes go out of focus and everything fades to grey. It’s like when you say a word over and over again and it starts to lose its meaning, and then you start to wonder if it’s really even a word at all. What is X?
In math, X is simply a placeholder, something to represent infinite possibilities of numbers. Yet, somehow, all we’ve been doing since fifth grade is trying to find X. That’s all any of us do, really, search high and low for some abstract X.
X is something different for everyone. It’s that thing we’re always searching for, that we wish for on birthdays and when the clock says 11:11. For some people it’s fame or money, for others it’s “true love,” or the perhaps even more elusive “happiness.” We imagine that somewhere down the road, once we find whatever X is for us, everything will be okay, and the loneliness and struggle and mistakes we’ve made will somehow all be worth it. That it’s all part of some master plan, some journey leading us to this ultimate destination.
But to be honest, I don’t buy it. I think people chalk way too much up to “the universe” and “everything happens for a reason.” And if you’re not careful, it’s so easy to spend your life chasing some ideal, like Gatsby chasing after Daisy, only to realize it’s somehow not enough. To always put it off until “someday,” only to realize that “someday” has already come and gone.
So is it actually even possible to find X?
I believe it is. I think as long as you never stop searching, learning and making mistakes, it’s possible. Maybe for some people X is some inner state of being, finding the peace to accept your life and who you are. To appreciate what you have.
Maybe for other people it’s winning a gold medal at the Olympics, or having children, or becoming a teacher, or whatever it is that makes them whole. I don’t really think finding X has to mean everything is perfect and that you finally get you’ve ever wanted. I think it means you’ve found a purpose in life, that you’ve somehow figured out a way to justify your own existence and come to an agreement with the universe.
The thing is, I have no idea what this X is going to be for me. I still don’t have a good answer for when my relatives ask me what I want to do with my life on Thanksgiving. But that’s okay. For now, I’m okay with just searching.
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