Sailing beyond the sunset

What am I going to do with my life? This is the question I am asked each time I walk into a holiday party, a family shindig or even a visit with my parents. Where am I going after May? Which company am I applying to? What will I do over the summer? How often am I going to visit? How much money do I want to make in 10 years? I feel like Aretha Franklin is tap dancing on my chest and the world is watching every choice I make with skepticism and scorn. I guess the answer to all of these questions is "I don't know." \nHundreds of college students each year go through the exacting agony and consternation of applying for jobs and forging a career path for themselves. Others in high school have timorous doubts regarding college, too -- my sister is going to a school she'd never heard of in a state she had never been to before this summer.\nWhen I graduate college I will be 21 years old and have two research-focused degrees. What, really, can I do? I thought about law school, but when I went to the Career Development Center to career panels and asked about law and graduate school or the possibility of work, they told me I need to be 100 percent sure. I'm not even 100 percent sure about what I want for lunch most of the time.\nSome of my closest friends and teachers told me to go straight into graduate school, while some of my favorite professors told me to take a break and find myself. Some tell me to apply to teach at private schools, and others suggest a various constellation, including AmeriCorps, teaching English in a foreign country or working for a newspaper.\nIf my Mom had it her way, I'm sure I would be going back to 6433 Shiva Dr., Michigan City, Ind., and living there until I was 35. This week, in fact, I have a Teach for America interview and I am both excited and trepidacious. Let's say I make it, where should I teach, what subject, what grade? \nI've applied for dozens of internships over the past few years and have been rejected from every one. I've even tried writing senators and congressmen, but still nothing. Each night I lie down in bed as the whirlpool of decisions twists faster and more furiously and all I want to do is swim out. Luckily, I have supportive parents whose inestimable love and fidelity have helped me my whole life. But, regarding a future path, it seems they are unable to help.\nWhen I was a boy they told me I could do anything. Now that I am a man, they say the same. Well, I want to do everything, and I believe I could do a lot. But for the time being, I need to do something. \nIf things don't work out immediately, I'll learn from it and sally forth. With a hungry heart, I can go anywhere, achieve anything, just as the indefatigable Ulysses did. Ulysses, as Alfred Tennyson writes, was a man with a restless spirit, quaking with the desire to "sail beyond the sunset." He continues, "That which we are, we are; /One equal temper of heroic hearts, /Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will /To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield." Though I'm anxious and fearful, I am still ready to set sail.