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niamh-and-dog

I’ve known myself for 20 years and 8 months now, a pretty long time to get to know someone. At this stage I should know myself inside out and upside down, right…? Turns out getting to know yourself is actually really hard. We see our own reflection almost every single day, but I still don’t fully know who I am. One day I want to be the carefree girl who travels the world with just a bag on her back. The next, I want to be the powerful woman with the successful career and all the fancy things to show for it. Truth is, I am just a student who doesn’t know where life is going to take her (there’s the carefree girl), or where I’m going to take my life (and there’s the powerful woman)…

A photo posted by Niamh Clarke (@missniamhclarke) on

Now that I’ve come to the point in my life where I should choose a path to take, I have begun to self-reflect. What kind of person am I? What am I good at? What am I not so good at? What will I do in the ‘real world’?

After thinking about these questions for quite some time now, I’ve realized that I don’t actually know the answers. That freaked me out at first. I’m almost 21 years old and I can’t even decide what to eat for dinner, let alone decide on a life path… With my final year of college in full swing everybody is asking that awful dreaded question; “So what are you going to do when you’re finished college?”. Lets just laugh it off, “Haha, that’s the million dollar question” (has a mini panic attack inside). I have done so much stressing trying to find the answer to this question. In order to answer this question I need to know the answers to one hundred and one other questions and then there are sub questions to these questions! And aahhhhh!!!

Breathe, step back and breathe again. At some point, we’re all going to face questions that we don’t know the answer to. I’ve found that this is the time when it’s best to stop looking so hard for the answer and instead, let the answer come to you. I still don’t have all of the answers, even after 7,548 days. When I was 16 I thought I would have my whole life figured out by now. I was sooo wrong. But hey, at 23 years of age…

Oprah had just been fired as a TV reporter

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JK Rowling was broke

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And Walt Disney had just declared bankruptcy…

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It’s going to be okay, I don’t have to have it all figured out right now. And maybe you don’t either. Sometimes we start to over analyse. Sometimes, just taking a few steps back from a situation can do a world of good. Sometimes, it’s okay not to know; and then someday, you will know. But until that day, stop worrying and start living.

Thanks Niamh Clarke for writing this lovely piece for us x


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