Existential Lessons from my Last College Class

So it seems as if my semester is going out like a smoldering coal rather than a big bang. I have thus far refused to study for my examinations; not entirely: I have 1/2 of two different books to read, and a bunch of notes to study, and the biggest, most important test is in less than 24 hours. I’m not a night person, I can barely make it till one AM (I hate coffee).

And all I keep thinking is what is going to happen once it’s all over. Yeah, I’ll be free, but then what. Find some rinky dink job doing something because I haven’t settled on a real position yet. If I had only studied business, engineering, nursing, or something that prepares me for a very specific career. Ironically, all of those subjects involve some sort of mathematics or science which I suck at.

It is unfortunate the way the world pushes and pushes twenty-somethings to find that “career.” I wanted to take some time off before going to college– I mostly wanted to get out of my parents’ house, so that’s why I’m here. Really, all I’ve ever known was school, and I have to sum it all up by picking something.

Once upon a time—my parents and even my grandparents’ generations—my choices would have been severely limited.

This somehow is relating back to my exam I have tomorrow. Erich Fromm- Escape from Freedom. (Read it if you have plenty of time and an open mind.) He would say, because we have so much freedom, freedom from persecution and such, so many choices, that we are actually not really free. Instead, we have to take responsibility for ourselves now. I actually have to figure out what I want to do with my life and make some sort of an effort instead of it just being lined up or forced on me. And Fromm’s point was because I have to make all of these choices, I’m actually not free.

I’m not sure that I understand exactly what he means. I think that I’m not free from the consequences of my choices, and I’m not free from having to make those choices. Supposedly this is all existentialist thinking…. If this makes any sense at all. And since I can be a lazy and sometimes, who’s quite indecisive (a slave to her decisions), and responsibility may not be all that high on my list of priorities, this existentialist, freedom thing seems to be quite applicable to my life right now.

That being said, I need to take my lazy butt back to the books and get some work done or I may not be graduating.