I’m a walking contradiction, some days. OK, maybe every day.

I hate change, for instance. At least when it’s not on my own terms. Yet, when there’s nothing special to look forward to in the immediate future (a haircut, holiday, date night) or life starts to taste of stale routine (commute, work, drive, work, sleep, work …), I get restless. I feel trapped, thinking ‘God, what if this is it? What if things never change? if I never get out of this entry-level job? out of the endless cycle of renting, moving, renting?

At 26, life looks a bit different than I envisioned it would back at 18. Which is fine, I mean, that’s life, right? Unpredictability keeps us working, striving, pushing toward something better, something different. It’s human nature to never be satisfied, I suppose. And complacency could be the death of motivation and the ever-evolving human spirit, and we don’t want that, now do we?

Still. I can’t put a finger on this recent anxiety. This wanting to jump out of my own skin, snap my fingers and instantly have a new career, a new focus, a new path. With no point of reference and my uncanny ability to revert to standard indecisiveness (in times I should be acting), though, I sort of wander in circles, hoping something will just collide with my aimless orbit and fling me conveniently toward new opportunity.

But I’m told we make our own opportunities. (It’s included in tuition fees, I’m pretty sure.)

I realize I’m preaching to the choir here, and certainly can’t be the only person disgruntled with their place in life. We’re all trying to better ourselves, look for a way we can be happy yet start to get ahead. Ahead of student loan payments, past entry-level positions and onto Where We Always Saw Ourselves as young dreamers in high school AP English class. When does it all come together?

I read about, hear about and talk to acquaintances who’ve got a resume a mile long. One they could use to conquer the world, whether that world be New York or a small Wisconsin city. They’ve capitalized on their ambitious tendencies, been relentless in networking and unafraid to take chances since probably infancy. That’s all very motivating, but also a reality check when you wonder “what have I done?”

(*pensive gaze) But if I were the glass-half-full girl I was at 18, I might instead ask … what can I still do?

Yeah. I like that. Maybe change is a good thing, especially when it’s on your own terms.