My Biggest Fear

I find it kind of silly that all of this is coming out just because I'm stressed out about my Psych141 research paper that's due in a week and a half.

My biggest fear would have to be accidentally or purposefully wasting my parent's money, epspecially if it's due to my own personal little academic endeavors, curiosity, or lack of focus.

Just like most other parents are with their kids, my parents had always told me that after I finished high school, I was going to college. A college education was the key to a good job/career, and a steady income that would allow me to start and raise my own family. Unfortunately, that's all they told me.

My parents never told me about any of the other possible options out there. They never said that there were plenty of other paths that could lead to the same happy outcome. They just said, "This is the path, walk it." Well, as much I feel like I may be walking down the wrong path, it's the only one I ever really knew, so I'm just sticking with it.

One thing I've come to realize in the past couple of years is that I have a lot of hobbies, but I'm not particularly good at any one thing. I lack a good sense of focus. I feel as if I'm a Jack of many trades, but a master at nothing. I dabble. I try something out until I get bored of it, find my limit, or just get too frustrated to keep going. Sure, I've got a pretty good handle on a good number of different forms music, but not enough on any one of them to the point that it could really take me anywhere. I just wish I could find the one thing that I'm really good at.

While Psychology has been my declared major since I applied to UC Davis, I'm really beginning to wonder if it's what I'm good at, or if I even like it. Every Psych class I've taken here, I've never been able to manage anything higher than a C+, and I'm starting to think that I might not even pass one of my Psych classes this quarter. The worst part is that the only reason I'm thinking like this is because I've come to realize just how lazy I am when it comes to school, which in itself is causing me to be too lazy to do anything about it. I don't want to ask for help because I'm too scared to really show that side of me.

So what am I supposed to do? Do I switch majors? Waste of my parents money: I'll be in school for longer than expected. Drop out of school? Even more of a waste of my parent's money: if I drop out now, that's $50,000 of their hard-earned money, gone. Switch schools? I can't think of any other school that I'd like as much as UC Davis.

Now that I think about it, the thing that I really lack is motivation. It seems to be a quality that pretty much everyone I know has. My two roommates spend countless hours studying for Managerial Economics, or Evolution and Ecology, respectively, and seeing them do that just makes me realize how little I do for Psychology. But the main difference that I see is that they are so driven to study that it's just second nature to them. They have found the thing that they are really good at, the one thing that they really enjoy, and every action that is related to it in any way just seems automatic for them, in my perspective. Kevin even reads his biology book for pleasure. I don't do that with any of my Psych books. I can't think of anything that I do that for.

Then again, no. Hold on. What it really is is that I take in all kinds of information. Really random information from whatever sparks my interest at the moment. Two of my favorite websites? Wikipedia.org and HowStuffWorks.com. I absolutely love going to those two sites, and typing in whatever I'm curious to learn about into the search box just to see what will pop up. On top of that, I enjoy finding practical solutions for everyday problems or tasks, whether it involves making certain things easier to do, or just doing certain things because they are neat and interesting. I love picking up just really, really general knowledge over a wide range of fields, because to be honest, I tend to get bored really easily. Unfortunately for me, there's no major for "General and Practical Knowledge". Because if there was, I'd be on that in a heartbeat. That's my bread and butter. Being a Jack of many trades.

Oddly enough I feel a lot better about my current situation, even though the only thing that's changed is that I've realized exactly what it is I like. But I still have no idea what to do at this point. And I still have no idea what I'm going to write about for my Cognitive Development paper.