thoughts

   I was asked the same thing by several old high school friends in separate instant message conversations. The question was not very deep, but its straight-forward query was still helpful: "What do you want to do?"
   When you're a kid, folks sometimes ask a similar question about "when you grow up". That's a tough question to answer well. In each of my recent conversations, I just listed a few ideas and shared a few of my interests. I wasn't sure if I would really be able to, or would actually want to, make a career out of any of them. I'm still not sure.
   Perhaps the question I need to answer is more simple. Not "What would I like to do?" but "How could I earn some money next year?" That shrinks the problem down a bit. For example, there are many, many topics that I am interested in exploring and writing about for this website. However, I'm glad that I'm not trying to make money here - seeing as I have had little insight into any of those areas for a week or so. I'll be better off taking the advice an impromptu mentor gave me: be glad to get even an unexceptional job, and then patiently work towards something less generic.
   But do I even need to answer questions like "How should I live?" It's good to ask them, but can I answer them? It would be better to seek an answer from the Great Employer than to ask myself my own questions. Even then, some questions won't need answers:
   Why don't I know what to do with my life?
   -versus-
   How do I find out?