The Beauty in Floundering

When I was in college, I set a meeting with my favorite professor to help plan for the future. He was a mentor to me. I always appreciated his advice and his belief in my skills boosted my belief in myself.

For so long, I had been school-focused. It was always finish the next paper, ace the next test, move onto the next grade, etc.

But graduation day was looming and and I had no idea where to go next.

So, like any other confused and anxious college student, I reached out to my mentor to find some guidance on where to go from here.

I loved my degree. I loved writing and researching. I had gained numerous skills, but I didn't know how to transfer them to an actual career.

Fortunately, there were many options. Unfortunately, that meant I had to choose only one out of 1000 different paths.

As a chronically indecisive person, this has been incredibly hard for me. I wanted to be all of it-what if I made the wrong choice?

During this meeting, I expected him to point me in the direction that I should go. I wanted him to tell me what I was best at so I knew what to do.

I wanted him to tell me if I should go to graduate school or get some experience. And if I should get some job experience, in what field? And how? And where?

But, when I sat down with my professor, he gave me the exact opposite of the advice I had been expecting. He asked me what I wanted to do, and when I didn't have an answer, he didn't offer me one.

At the time, I was frustrated. I needed direction. I need it for him to tell me what I was good at and what to do next.

The path had always been clear before: do good in school and move onto the next level. But I was out of levels (at least for the moment) and I didn't know what to do. And to my frustration, he didn't tell me.

But looking back, I realize he gave me something better: acceptance.

In his exact words, he told me, "it's okay to flounder."

As we sat in an empty classroom (COVID prevented us from meeting in his small office), my mentor, the man who helped me decide my major, the guy who pushed me to push myself, told me to let myself wander aimlessly.

I was shocked. I had worked hard for years. I achieved the best grades. I networked with as many professors and university staff as possible.

What I wanted-and what I expected- was for my mentor to hand me the perfect opportunity for growth and experience.

After all, isn't that the point? Knowing people who know people?

I was irritated. Couldn't he see I was already floundering? Graduation was moving closer with each passing day and I needed to figure out where I was going from here.

As my mentor, he knew some of my backstory-especially the fact that I was the first person in my family to graduate from college.

If you are one of those first generation students, you can understand the pressure and confusion that accompanies it.

Getting through college as a "first gen" is hard enough. But it is equally difficult to transition from college to career without having someone already walk that path.

I didn't have the time to flounder. I needed to succeed-and I needed him to tell me how to do that. But he didn't do that.

Instead, he looked me in the eyes and told me to give myself a break.

My mentor was not known for being easy-going. He expected nothing short of excellence from his students.

He had pushed me for the past four years and encouraged me to push myself even further. And now he was telling me to flounder? It didn't make any sense.

Rather than encourage me to pursue a masters degree, he suggested I take some time off from the pressure of trying to succeed.

He actually told me not to go to graduate school until I knew what I wanted. It's not that he didn't think I could hack it, but because he knew it wasn't a solution to my lack of direction. The problem went deeper.

In a way, I didn't know who I was outside of school. The real question I was asking: who am I supposed to be now?

I had succeeded in all of my classes. I was passionate about what I was studying and I was dedicated to mastering the skills attached. I had spent the last four years working hard. The point of all of that was to add up to a career.

But instead, at 21 years old, the future career I envisioned for myself was still as hazy as when I had been a wide-eyed 18-year-old freshman.

This led to a lot of anxiety and frustration on my part. I was struggling to figure out who I was and what I wanted (who isn't in their early 20s?).

As a first gen student (and honestly, as a college student in general), there is a lot of pressure to prove the value of my degree and put it to good use.

But not knowing who you are-or what you want to do-can make it very difficult.

And there I sat, in front of one of the departments' most admired and successful professors, and his advice to me was to flounder.

He told me to take a year off. To not even consider working in the field of my degree if I didn't want to. He encouraged me to get a job at a local grocery store (literally) and let myself clumsily walk through the next phase of my life.

At first, I was very frustrated because it didn't help. In fact, it verbalized my greatest fear. I didn't work so hard to fail. I didn't dedicate hours of writing and studying and learning for it all to amount to nothing.

But as time passed and graduation moved even closer, I realized the value of what he said.

I had worked hard for a very long time. And while it was worthwhile for my degree, I was looking at it all wrong.

This was the point where my hard work (earning my degree) was supposed to start to pay off. Not that I would have my dream career out of the gate, but that I would find some thing in life that made it worth living.

Otherwise, I was just going to continue overworking myself without an end goal in sight.

What's more, I was only 21 at the time. No one tells you that you don't have to have your life together by the time you graduate college. I still had (and have) plenty of time to figure out who I am- I have plenty of time to flounder.

And before long, his simple reminder became a daily affirmation. Now, it is taped to my bathroom mirror, scribbled on a bright pink Post-it note, reminding me every day that it's okay to flounder.

Because let's be honest, there is something incredibly powerful and moving when a successful and supportive mentor gives you permission to not know who you are and to struggle to find out.

While I felt so much pressure and expectation (both internally and externally) to succeed, he had given me permission to fail. He gave me permission to be confused. Permission to struggle.

Permission to figure out who I was. He reminded me that I was still just a 21 year old kid, trying to figure out her place in the world.

And his advice taught me to give myself l room to be all of those things.

Life isn't simple. If it was, I would be an author or an editor or a publisher or any of the other thousands of career options open to me.

If it was simple, I (like so many other people my age) wouldn't feel so lost and out of place.

But in this messy life, my professor gave me the gift of grace.

Grace for myself. Grace to remember that success isn't defined by academics or career achievements alone.

Ironically, since that conversation, I have definitely been floundering. And dealing with chronic physical and mental illness, my career opportunities (which felt way too vast at that time) have trickled to a minimum.

Yet, at the same time, that's okay.

I don't have to have it all together. I don't have to be successful at 23. One of the things I was so very terrified of has come true. But it's not so horrific as it seemed.

It's okay to flounder.

All of this is to say, if you're struggling, if you don't know who you are or where you're going, that's okay.

Hopefully, one day all of us will find our little corner of the world that we fit into. But until then, let's flounder together.

Dr. R, I don't know if you'll ever read this, but if you do, thank you for giving me some of the best advice I have ever received. Being your student gave me something to be passionate about, but it also taught me that I don't have to be perfect all the time. This piece is for you.