I feel quite introspective lately. I'm not sure what it is - I keep blaming it on the time change though :). I've been trying (like so many people) to figure out what my path is in life. I have always been on two ends of the philosophy spectrum - its either "make your own destiny" and plan to the hilt or "its the journey, not the destination" and go with the flow. So that means I'm permanently between a rock and a hard place - trying to plan and having it not work out and try and go with the flow.
I've read a few books that have added to my current stage of introspectiveness (or as my friends call it - "being in a funk") - the most influential of which is "The Dive from Clauseen's Pier." It was quite a moving novel, but it moved me in ways I'm not sure I can comprehend yet. It asks the question, "How much do we owe the people we love?" When do we have to choose between ourselves and our families, and in choosing one or the other are we in essence hurting both.
I have never made any excuses for the choices I have made in my life, and I have never considered them to be "sacrifices." I think the minute I consider it a sacrifice, it is a selfish choice and I am choosing to be a martyr - and I don't want to be that.
I guess what this is coming down to is that I am in my mid-twenties and am at a crossroads in my life. It may not seem like it to most, but I feel like I need to make some decisions instead of letting everything happen to me. I feel surrounded by friends that are living the life I want but am afraid to have. How can you want something so badly and when you finally get it - not want it anymore?
It all comes down to "What do I want to do with my life?" I been lucky in my life to happen upon good situations and have worked hard to live up to them. Yet, I need a direction, a goal that I am striving to achieve. Things are culminating and I need to make a decision and I feel I will be sacrificing something no matter what I do. I understand that we all make sacrifices in life, men as well as women, yet it doesn't make them any easier to make.
I guess I want it all; a career, a family, a house, a comfortable life. I'm not naive enough to think that I can have it all, I'm just having a hard time deciding what to sacrifice.
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Bethany,
Sometimes, the real challenge is to challenge the assumption that your options are mutually exclusive. Why must you give up X if you are to pursue Y? What would it take for you to do both?
On a (perhaps) different note (or perhaps not!), looking at your background, I would suggest that "serious games" occupy a growing role in preparing our military for the challenges of trying to build a better world in a foreign culture while people are trying to kill us! (grin) In my campaign platform for AECT Board, I recalled the role the Educational Technology profession played in preparing the "Greatest Generation" for World War II using the motion picture projector; perhaps games like this will prove the same thing for this generation and this struggle.
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