Albert Einstein once said, “The secret to a happy life is hunkering down in a cold, isolated place so that you never have to experience the blistering heat of failure. You must throw down your anchor on the shore of icy waters and embrace the soothing protection of the frost as it develops around you.”
I’m fibbing, of course. Einstein never uttered such ridiculous advice. But there have been times I wish he had.
When you’re standing in that bone-chilling pocket of indecision between “What am I supposed to do with my life?” and “I need to know I will be successful,” it would certainly be comforting to realize that one of the smartest individuals to ever grace this planet believed it was perfectly OK to do nothing.
But stagnation is no way to live. Fear and self-doubt are not warm and tender feelings. The combination of anxiety and solitude hardly ever leads to a sense of dignity about oneself.
So, imagine how much easier things could be if, at birth, we each received a personalized copy, signed by God, of Big Decisions for Dummies: A User’s Manual for Getting Through Life Without Costly Mistakes or Titanic Embarrassments. It would include your own maintenance schedule and helpful tutorials for making “the right” choices at life’s biggest milestones. Sadly, few (if any) of us ever get such a handy guidebook.
In the absence of authoritative instructions, we often turn to popular culture for direction. But, the guidance we receive from this source is frequently just recycled “common sense.” It comes from a noisy and cluttered trash heap of favorite-but-unoriginal phrases that lose their meanings a little more each time they are expressed by well-intentioned counselors, teachers, parents, preachers or millionaire gurus.
As a writer, I’m as guilty of this as anyone. Clichés are easy to use because they don’t require much thinking. But they don’t work so well for students or anyone else who might be stuck in a frigid vortex of indecision.
Seriously, does hearing “do what you love” really help anybody for more than a day? I happen to love lounging in a dark room with Pink Floyd streaming through my headphones and a purring cat by my side as I contemplate what I’ll do if the government ever decides to outlaw tofu. But, will doing this on a regular basis help me pay the bills?
No. And neither will my rambling.
Therefore, let me welcome you to this blog. No More Frozen Students promises only to be an unpredictable collection of stories, insights, updates and hints for making sense of the complex intersection between post-secondary education options, career-hunting dilemmas, and all those niggling human emotions that so often make moving forward more difficult than it should be.
This would also be a good time to tell you that I won’t be the only voice on this blog. I can imagine you are at least a little bit ecstatic with that news. Truth be told, I’m perfectly happy about it as well. While I hope you will make No More Frozen Students a regular part of your school or career search, I personally look forward to learning from our other contributors, and even you. Especially you.
Nobody has all the answers. So, just think of us as your (sometimes quirky) companions on your voyage through unfamiliar waters. We can’t guarantee that you’ll avoid a shipwreck, but we can vow to do our best to give you the kind of support you’ll need along the way. With any luck, you’ll discover your own paradise.
Albert Einstein once said, “A ship is always safe at the shore, but that is NOT what it is built for.”
No lie.
