The Warsaw High School Times

„I’m afraid of many things, but the future isn’t one of them,” said no one I know ever, especially students, because the future is terrifying.

There are so many decisions to make ahead of us—what university to go to, what courses to take—we are all slowly becoming adults, and there is no doubt that it may turn out to be an amazing experience, but it is not going to be easy. One single decision I make about where and what to study is going to affect my whole life. And I need to make that decision right now because if I (a humanist) decided right now that I wanted to study astronomy, medicine, or any other science, I would have to change my extended subjects completely, but if I actually did that, there would be no turning back, and I would have to do something related to science.

The problem is that people are not solid. People evolve and change every single day, especially us teenagers, so it is really hard to make any decisions right now. I wish I knew exactly what I wanted to do with myself, but there are just so many options, and somehow still not enough. It is all so overwhelming that I do not even know where to start. I wake up every morning and kind of reimagine myself and my future. People are fluid.

When I think of the future, aliens and flying cars are not what comes to my mind, but rather a lot of anxiety, stress, and weltschmerz. I do not know what I want to do with my life yet, and it terrifies me because, even though there is no shame in changing your degree, I do not want to feel like I have wasted a few years of my life studying “pointless” things.

Our generation has been traumatised by all the recent events that affect our education, starting with the teachers’ strike in 2019, then the pandemic, lockdown, e-learning, and many reforms that were supposed to help us, but did they really? It is perfectly normal to feel burnt out and unmotivated; even though it is terrifying, it is also very sensible to be confused about the future.

As Barbie has told me many times, I can do whatever I want, and that would be great if I knew what it is that I want to do.

The world has so much to offer, and I only get one life. I do not want to limit myself. I want to travel. I want to explore the world and see things that will make me reconsider everything I know about life. I want to feel things, achieve things, and, at the end of my future, I do not want to regret a thing.