DEAR SEAN:
I’m a high-school senior and I’m confused about what to do when I graduate. I’m so lost and mixed up about which college I should pick, and thinking how weird this year is, I have bad anxiety, and I’m getting a lot of pressure about it. Please give me some advice.
Thanks,
MIXED-UP-IN-HUNTSVILLE
DEAR MIXED-UP:
One day, in the far-off future, when this world is more advanced than it is now, something will happen to you. Something cool.
Right now you’re a young woman and it’s hard to imagine the fast-paced future. But one day you might be living in a fiber-optic age where the world is über fast.
Everyone will be using futuristic high-tech devices that make today’s smartphones look like Playskool products.
Maybe there will be flying cars. Or perhaps we’ll have three-dimensional TVs so that, instead of simply watching horrifying 24-hour news, we can sit right in the anchor’s lap.
By then you will be old and gray. Perhaps you will have cataracts. Maybe your knees will hurt. Maybe your health won’t be great.
You might
find yourself in the corner of your room at the Magnolia Manor Nursing Home, seated in your electric wheelchair, looking out a window at your flower boxes. Thinking.
Then, let’s say you turn from the window, wheel yourself to the hall, flip on the overhead light, and look at Your Wall.
Every room in this nursing facility—without exception—has a wall like this. A wall loaded with old photographs. Look at your wall. Doesn’t it just beat everything?
See the picture at the top? It’s your grandson after he snagged his first buck. Neon orange hat. Camo jacket. He looks just like his father did at that age.
There’s a photograph of your daughter. The colors are faded. She had just gotten out of the hospital after having her appendix surgery. Boy, was that a scary time to be…