I’ve been floundering about what to do with my career/extra time for quite a while. I went and got an economics degree. I had an internship for a while (it didn’t go very well). I’ve applied for jobs, then withdrawn my application. I’ve started to prepare for graduate school, only to rethink what I want to study.

Here’s the thing: none of these choices are really that significant. I’m a stay-at-home mom right now, and if I was a stay-at-home mom for forever, life would be pretty amazing.

But I still would like to do some good in the world, and I will have the time to do it. I just am not sure what I want that to be.

When I was younger, I wanted to write novels. Except for the failure rate of this choice is really quite high, as it’s spending hundreds of hours for hundreds of rejections. I still love writing.

More recently, I wanted to be an economist. And I love economics. I often read and think about economics (as you’ve noticed from a few posts on this blog). But I’m not super interested in or prepared for the graduate level math and statistics that a graduate program would require.

I’ve thought about getting a PhD in philosophy, but Bertrand Russell’s defense of why to study philosophy made me rethink that. He mentions that philosophy is only useful to the people who are studying philosophy–so what good can I do spending five or more years in something that is fun but doesn’t really matter or help other people?

I love school, so I’ve looked at other graduate programs as well. Even dreamed about it last night–my sister made me a recommendation in my dream to go get an instructional design degree.

I’ve looked at jobs, particularly in nonprofit and government, and thought about getting an MPA.

And I want to write books. This is the one thing that never changes.

But then I think about writing articles or getting a job as a writer for some company, and I get less excited.

I also really want to teach college classes. I’ve wanted to do this since I was 19 years old.

So what do I do?

I feel pretty vulnerable sticking all of this out there. I don’t want to share with everyone the few people who read my blog that I am wishy-washy and have no clue what I’m doing.

I can’t do everything. And I don’t know if what I choose really matters; I just want to choose it and be done with it. I’ve had so many career plans over and over again, and then I fail to act on it as much I think I should.

I need to act more than I need to plan and rethink my decisions. But I am just always planning and rethinking my decisions instead.