Kira's Diary - The Future

It's always difficult when you have people telling you what you should and shouldn't be doing in the future; what is "valued" in terms of job descriptions, how much money you are making, even what you are spending your money on. It's difficult having to create your own path without people giving an opinion, or even pushing you on to a new one. The amount of friends that I have where their family have dictated to what they are studying at university, what job they have, even where they live.  It's like we're expected to know what we want, but as soon as we are certain on our future someone doesn't agree or wants to change that.

I am at university studying business, a course that I chose myself. I decided on this as I thought it would give me a wider choice of what I wanted to do after as a career; I can cross in to any department, job, anything I want to do with this degree! I also have a placement year that helps me potentially secure a job in the future which will be extremely helpful as for students, going in to the real world it is often difficult to find a stable job and career straight away in something that you truly want to do.
Although I made this choice, and it is benefitting toward my future, my parents did have a say in what I was going to do, and I feel like that is ok; it is when it becomes a dictatorship and your life choices are taken away and given to someone else.

No one can determine the future, which to me is a scary thought. Taking a darker path, with the way our environment and nature is decreasing our future may be cut short. However, I believe that our generation are ready to enforce that change. Already there has been an extravagant increase in vegetarians and vegans who are protecting our environment, and more activists are speaking out and taking a stand for what they feel is right.
The shootings in America that have happened, the parades and protests for 'Black Lives Matter' is bringing people together to fight a good cause, to give everyone a chance to be free and equal, and to change the future for the better. We need more people that are focusing on the future and making a world a better place, creating little changes in their life that makes living a whole lot worth while for not only us but also generations to come.

On the other hand, however, we do also get a lot of people that say, "Focus on the now!", which I totally agree with - to an extent. When it comes to those HUGE changes that will affect a lot of people in the present and future, such as the 'Black Lives Matter' campaign, I feel like you need to focus on the now as well as the future to be able to measure how much change this will cause. When it comes to the smaller ideas, like university, or even the concept of travelling, living your life in the present, focusing on what you can achieve now, is something that I truly think is best for a positive mindset.
I know that I think a lot about the future, a lot about "what-ifs" and less about what is happening now and just living in the moment, which I completely regret. Being half way through university and that one step closer to adulthood has made me regret caring so much when I was younger. I cared about what people thought of me, what my grades were in order to get a good job or get in to university, and it overran my life that I ended up losing friends and not doing as much as a lot of others did when they were a teenager.

Being almost 20 makes you realise how fast life goes and how living in the moment and not worrying about the future is important. However, I think there needs to be a balance between living in the present and future, as if you are all about today and live with a "carpe diem" attitude, you end up not planning for the future which I believe is a bit too risky for myself. Mapping your life out is a little extreme, but so is not planning at all. If you know me, you know that I love balance and harmony, so that's something that I definitely strive for, and in the past year I have started to do. I do as much as I can now in terms of my own life as well as helping causes and trying to speak out as much as I can, however still have those feint guidelines ahead so I know exactly what direction I'm going in. And just to add, don't let anyone else dictate to your life and your choices; if you want to be a vet then work towards being one. Want to make chairs for a living; cool, become one. Thinking about becoming a social media star; just try, try, try and hopefully you'll succeed.

Never let anyone tell you you can't do something or you'll never succeed; there's always chance, there's always hope and there's always perseverance!