Whatcha doin'?

     Do I really need a purpose?

 (side note: that is possibly the first time I've spelled 'purpose' correct on the first try in my entire life.)

     I feel like a purpose is something only important people have. I'm just a 17 year old high school student. My thoughts and opinions don't really matter yet. But I suppose that someday, with any luck, I'll have a purpose.

Poor kid. If only life could be this easy.

     When you're growing up, you always seem to know exactly what you want to do with your life. You want to be a princess or a doctor or Ninja Turtle or an astronaut (sorry kids, that dream's now impossible. Thanks NASA.) or, in my case, a country music superstar. That's right folks, I was dead set on being a famous singer. But then I grew up and realized how bad of stage fright I have. Dream: crushed.
      So as I grew up, I always knew exactly what I wanted to do. I've planned on being a genealogist, an architectural historian, a neurologist studying how music affects the brain, a stay at home mom, a lawyer, a writer, a paranormal expert, a writer, a reader, and a politician. My dreams and desires seemed to change faster than some of my friends' relationship statuses. And here I am, December of my senior year of high school, trying to figure out what I want to do with my life, and I'm coming up with zilch. I don't really understand this phenomenon. Why do we know exactly what we want until it's time to officially decide?

It's just all so confusing!

      I guess if I had to pick my purpose, as this assignment asks of me, I would say it could be a lot of things. It could be to work with little kids (God knows how much I love them). It could be to study things for fun and not do well in actual classes (ask me anything about quarks or tardigrades. I'll blow your mind. Ask me about MLA format and I'll make you cry with disappointment). It could be a lot of things. But right now, I think my purpose is to find my purpose.

      Something I've noticed this week is that I'm always either the best of the worst, or the worst of the best. It's like I live on that fine line between great and terrible. I'm the in betweener. I'm the one who's the screw-up of the good kids, but the crowning jewel of the screw ups. As I once wrote in an essay for Mrs. Vetter's freshman English class, I am made of contradictions and discrepancies.
      (TANGENT TIME!) As Augusten Burroughs said, and John Green mentioned in his super awesome book The Fault in Our Stars, “I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.” That could probably sum me up about as well as anything else. I think that could be my purpose, to just mess up with the best intentions in mind. I'd be pretty dang good at that. I'm the best at screwing up.

     Back to the subject. One purpose I've, unfortunately, overlooked is to be awesome. As mentioned in previous blog posts, I am a member of Nerdfightaria. It's like, the coolest internet community ever. Everyone's made of awesome and no one would ever want to do anything that wasn't beneficial to more people than it hurts. Hank Green, the science-y brother who also has a beautiful way with words, once said ". . . Maybe that's what we should be trying for. For the world to be less good without us." I don't know about you, but that seems like a pretty good goal for life. But, as he also said (in a totally different video) "Some people are so intent on leaving their mark on the world that they don't care if it's a scar." That's pretty not-some. It's the complete opposite of awesome! But the sad part is that it's true. Some people just don't think about how the things they do effect people, and we all should! Maybe that could be my purpose. I can be the one that calls people out when they're not being cool. I can be the local version of John and Hank Green! But in all actuality, my purpose is to be me.

For better, for worse, forever. I'll be me.