On Decisions
Out of all the schools I applied to, the only one I never eventually got into was the University of Washington in Seattle. Interestingly enough, I now live just over a block away from it.
A few days ago we got some good weather and I decided to take a stroll through the campus that had denied me so many years ago. As I was walking past the buildings that I hadn't seen since my senior year tour, I was struck by how different my life would be if I had been accepted there, or for that matter, had gone to any of the other schools I applied to originally or for transfer.
I once had my sights set on a small liberal arts school in the middle of Pennsylvania, where I would have almost certainly gone into investment banking. They had a big feeder program with some firms in New York, a program a girl I'd been crushing on had just been accepted into.
I also could have gone to the University of Oregon, or Washington State, huge schools with giant party scenes that I may have enjoyed too much.
For a while, I was committed to Carnegie Mellon for a five year architecture program.
That commitment didn’t last long. A few weeks after visiting some of my high school buddies and I were having a few brews. I was on bud light number four when I came to the conclusion that I didn’t want to move to the east coast. Instead, I did a complete 180 and accepted an offer from Gonzaga University, a school in a city I had never heard of in a state I'd been to only once prior and happened to be the rival of a college that was right down the street of my childhood home. To study politics. Yea I have questions, too.
I have zero regrets. Gonzaga was one of the best things to happen to me...or rather the people I met there were some of the best things, but it’s crazy to look back and think about how different your life would be if you had gone to a different college.
If I had gone to that Pennsylvania school, most of my friends would have been from the east coast, and I would probably be wearing a tie right now.
If I had gone to Carnegie Mellon, I would still be in school right now in Pittsburgh, probably locked in a studio behind on a draft.
And if I had gone to one of those big state schools, I'd probably be an alcoholic.
I kid, for the most part.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently as I’ve been settling into my new home in Seattle. The people I am living with are amazing people, but if you told me I would be living with them here a year ago, I would have called the cops on you. One decision led me to them and Seattle, just like one decision led me to the clubs and dorms where I found some of the best of friends and one decision led the college that completely changed my career path and ambitions.
That’s insane to me. That a single decision could have so much of an impact. Even a little bit scary now as I don’t have the limitations of school keeping me in one place. Since the primary form of me making money is online, I could be anywhere in the world doing anything with anyone. A single decision could take me anywhere.
These decisions used to stress me out. Their gravity would keep me up at night with worry that I would make the wrong one. That I would be looking back as I am doing now with regret, saying I should have gone to this school or done this at this school or not even gone to school at all. I didn’t want to spend my life asking what if to the past.
This may be naïve for me to say as a 23-year-old, but I feel like I have made enough of these big decisions to know most of them work out in the end. And if they don’t well there is always another opportunity around the corner to change your mind.
So while they are still scary, these decisions don’t stress me out like they used to. I know there are many of them in my future and I am excited to see what forks in the road I choose. That being said, I am more than content with where I am now. I have some time before the next fork in my road appears, and I am going to enjoy it.