It's Only Natural

By Mike Leifeld

My biggest flaw might be my indecisiveness.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t lose any sleep thinking about what I’ll wear tomorrow or deciding what I’ll do next weekend. It’s the big decisions – like what I want to do for the rest of my life – that trouble me. For the longest time, I blamed my parents.

My mom has worked her way up through the ranks of the newspaper business, which meant a lot of moving for me. She was a writer in California, where I was born. She was a copy-editor in Lansing, Mich., where we moved next. She was an editor in Battle Creek, Mich. and also in Rochester, NY until she was promoted to publisher in Ithaca, New York. We were eventually sent back to Battle Creek, and have since lived in Wisconsin and Tennessee.

I hated my parents with every move because it meant goodbyes to old friends and uncertainties at new schools. It never took more than a couple of months to readjust to the new scene (and forgive my parents), but I was always aware that soon, the next move might come.

Now, as a senior at Kalamazoo College, I know there is another big move pending. As before, I don’t want to move, but now, more than ever, I have control of where I’ll go next. And I’m stumped.

My indecisiveness has plagued me for years: When I was in high school and all of my friends had sent out their applications and were awaiting reply, I was still trying to decide where I wanted to apply. When girlfriends pressured me to become more serious, I broke up with them. When deciding on my major at school, I chose English – not because I particularly like literary theory or poetry or anything that English majors are supposed to like, but because I couldn’t decide on anything else.

I’m sure my indecisiveness has led to some commitment problems that stem from not staying in one place or doing one thing for long periods of time. I think this is the reason why choosing a post-college path has been so difficult for me. For example, I discovered an interest in journalism two summers ago when I worked as a sports reporter in Wisconsin. I continued with the work the next summer in Tennessee and decided to focus my studies for a possible career in journalism. I know that I could get a job as a journalist and, until recently, I was sure that is what I wanted to do.

However, sometime in the last few months, I began having reservations about this career. I knew I would get bored if I always had to write the same kinds of stories (little league stories in Wisconsin) and annoyed of working on deadlines (late-night games in Tennessee). And the job is, after all, in the same business as the one my mom followed. Did I really want to deal with all the moving and instability again? So, recently, I began exploring other options. I looked into everything from law school to business jobs to the Peace Corps. Nothing seemed to jump out at me.

With the last couple months of my college education winding down, I have felt troubled, like most seniors do, about which one of these paths I will take after I graduate. It bothered me a lot until a couple of weeks ago when I stumbled across a surprising revelation. The eye-opener came from the same source that I thought had caused my problems: my parents.

After dinner and a few drinks last month, my parents and I talked about all the places we lived and which places we liked the best. We talked about the time my dad took a water-balloon to the face in Rochester, the baseball field he mowed in our backyard in Ithaca and my first high school football game in Battle Creek. We talked about my sister’s bike-trail in California, our Packers tickets in Wisconsin and the time we met Kenny Chesney in Nashville. We talked about good memories and even some bad – like the time I tried to run away when they told me were moving again.

But that night my mom told me something that changed my outlook on life. When I wondered aloud about what it would have been like if we would’ve stayed in California and never moved she said, “Well, you wouldn’t be the same person you are now.” She pointed out that I probably wouldn’t have met half of the people I know or experienced half of the things that made up what I am made up of.

It was stupid of me to never think of this before, but the words have had a profound impact on me. I realized that no matter what post-college path I choose, I will have experiences, good and bad. Worrying about which decisions I will make when the time comes does me no good. No matter which road I choose, those experiences will shape who I am, along with the ones I have already experienced.

So, even if I still am indecisive or have commitment problems, I should realize that it is only because I am happy where I am at now and I’m scared to lose it. It’s only natural.