Bethany Nagel
Victorian Literature E375L
Fall 2006
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will
take you there”[1]
Regarding my future, I have ten different careers in mind, one thousand goals to accomplish, and one million adventures I would like to have before I die. Everywhere I look there are potential career paths to follow, experiences to have, and ambitions to pursue. I hope to accomplish many things in my life, but I have no idea where to start. I feel like Alice standing in front of the Cheshire Cat asking, “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”[2] With all the possibilities open to me, I can’t help but spend a little time contemplating each path.
One option is to forgo graduate school and join a service organization like the Peace Corps, Teach for America, or Doctors Without Borders. I have a great respect for the services these organizations provide all over the world. The skills I would learn and the experiences I would have would be invaluable to me in any career. Spending my life teaching underprivileged children in the slums of a major city, assisting doctors to treat those with AIDS in Africa, or feeding orphans in India seems like a worthy way to spend my time. Compared with choices like these, going to graduate school for a PhD seems like a selfish and an unworthy way to spend the next few years.
Another option would be to follow in my mother’s
footsteps and become a chef. I can
imagine myself opening a kitchen for the homeless and raising money to help
feed them more than bread. I would also
offer jobs to homeless people to work in this kitchen, but it has been my
experience that a kind word and a warm meal can lighten spirits better than any
amount of money. Hopefully, this act of
kindness would encourage homeless people to accept help in getting off the
streets. At the same time as this, I
would have my own little café where I would serve my favorites of my mother’s
recipes: 
Tomato
Basil Bisque, Twice Baked Shrimp Stuffed Potatoes, and Pecan Crusted
Tilapia. If I had any skill at all in
cooking, I might seriously consider this option.
If my father had his way, I would spend the rest of my life training and racing horses with him. I would enjoy nothing more than to spend day after day outside with my horses, watching the foals grow and training horses for myself and other people. Defending my title (a practice run)[3] and eventually running professionally would be wonderful, but the chance to make a difference in other people’s lives would pass me by. I hope to have a positive impact on the world, and I want more from my life than serving my own interests.
In the opposite
direction of a professional career, getting married and becoming a mother are
also possibilities. I can think of no
other career that is so rewarding and demanding than that of a mother. The work that goes into raising children
would be difficult, but the family and love that come from it would make it
worthwhile. I have seen my mother and,
later, my sister with their own children, and I know intimately how mothers
help “ To cheer 
one
on the tedious way/ To fetch one if one goes astray, / To lift one if one
totters down, / To strengthen whilst one stands.”[4] But even though I know how rewarding
motherhood can be, I wonder if, after my children have grown, I will be content
with what I have accomplished. The
decision between a career and a family is a difficult one, but, if I do choose
motherhood, I hope I can incorporate a career into my life as well.
My problem is I have so many ideas and possibilities bouncing around that I find it hard to focus. My passions are so varied and different I don’t know how to decide which ones I will pursue in the future. My mind constantly yells at me to “Produce! Produce!”[5] And I constantly ask my mind, “Produce what?” What should I produce first? What is most important to produce? Which path would make me happiest? Which path would make those around me happiest? When I think about these questions, I find the same goals or issues always are at the top of my list.
My first goal is
happiness. Whatever I do in my life, I
wish happiness for those around me and myself.
This means spending as much time with loved ones as possible, whether it
be watching my children’s soccer game, eating lunch with my sisters, or
spending time with my husband. I hope
taking time to enjoy being with those I love will always be central to my life. When I was a young child, my father, as the
CEO of his 
company,
was always on his cell phone or on business trips. He worked himself into high cholesterol and ulcers to give his
daughters the lifestyle he wanted them to have. Now, in retrospect, he wishes he had skipped a few more business
meetings and made it to a few more piano concerts or horse shows. It wasn’t until I was eight or nine that he
started to slow his work down in order to focus on his family, and as a result
he was, to put it in his words, “worlds happier.” Because of his example and experience, I refuse to spend my life
climbing the corporate ladder and trying to make more money. There is so much more joy in life than what
money can give. All I ask is for people
to love, sufficient means to support myself, and a job I find challenging and
interesting. If I can attain these
things, I will consider myself blessed.
My second goal is
a job I can be happy working in. For
me, this means going to graduate school and earning my PhD. While I don’t think a PhD is necessary for
me to be happy, it is a challenge I would like to face. I am most interested in studying works from
the classical era and the Middle Ages. Because
of this I am pursuing an undergraduate degree in English and in Classical
Civilizations. I believe that
literature is the only field in which I can 
combine
most of my passions, and, hopefully, a graduate degree will open doors into
many interesting fields of work.
Palaima believes the study of literature “develops sympathy and
perspective. It takes us outside
ourselves and our own narrow pursuits and desires and helps us understand
others,”[6]
and that is what I hope to gain from a graduate degree. I love to interact with people and it is my
belief that studying literature will help me relate to others in every aspect
of my life. I hope use this skill while
teaching at the college level. I’m also
interested in publishing, writing, editing, non-profit organizations, and
opening a bookstore. But even if I do
not end up in any of these careers, as long as my job is rewarding and
interesting I will be satisfied.
My third goal has
been important to me since I was a child.
I spent a large portion of my life on my father’s ranch, and because of
that, nature played a large part in molding the person I am today. As a result I feel a responsibility to
protect it and to educate others about the dangers it faces, for “what is
Earth’s eye, tongue, or heart else, where/ Else, but in dear and dogged man?”[7] The preservation of the environment should
be top priority to everyone, from the government down the individual
people. Like Hopkins, I can’t imagine a
world “bereft/ Of wet and of wildness.”[8] Because of this I will always actively work
to save the environment. I hope to
attend the University of Colorado at Boulder for graduate school, the number
one school of environmental research in the nation. While I would not be majoring in 
this
subject, I will involve myself in conservation issues and enjoy being around
others who share my love of nature.
Further down the road, if I end up teaching at a university, I hope to
involve my students in this campaign by founding organizations that educate and
inspire people to act on environmental issues.
If I work as an author or as a publicist I hope to promote the issues
involving the environment through writing.
Other options include researching ecological issues, lobbying in
Washington for laws focused on conservation, or founding a non-profit
organization for the preservation of nature. There are many ways to go about achieving my goal, and I hope to
always have the ingenuity to see them.
But above all else, I hope that life never loses its luster. I hope I wake each morning eager to start my day and excited about the days to come. Robert Brickely said, “The greatest value of an education is a strong sense of curiosity.”[9] It is my prayer that through my life I never lose the sense of curiosity that I acquired in my childhood and college years. Thus far, I have done a good job of this. My boyfriend and I have a running list of things we would like to do, and we are constantly adding to it. The list includes activities like kayaking, spelunking, and traveling extensively. We do some of these activities often, such as camping, visiting museums, and reading books, while others are goals for later in life, such as living abroad and traveling the world. Having goals to look forward to and work for helps keep life interesting and exciting. I hope that I will never outgrow the fascination for life I have now, that these passions will always, “give us a quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love,”[10] and that I will never lose the will to discover something new.
If
I have my way, my life will be full of random road trips, surprise parties, and
constantly saying, “I love you.” Life
will never lose its excitement and I will never lose my passion for it. There will be smiles on the faces and joy in
the hearts of those I love. I will live
my life content with having enough and never reaching for more than I
need. I will teach my children the love
of nature and passion for life my parents taught to me, and I will always place
my family before professional success.
If I am never famous for writing a book, saving the environment, or
winning the Nobel peace prize, I will be okay with that. The journey is what is important to me, not
the end result. So as long as I put all
my effort into my work, all my love into my family, and all my joy into living,
I will count myself among the happiest of people.
P2A:
Word Count: 1,512
Quotes: 110
Adjusted: 1,402
P2B:
Words deleted: 19
Words added: 351
Adjusted word count: 1,844
https://webspace.utexas.edu/bln252/www/project2.htm
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