“Where I’m From”- Part III: Where I’m Going

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Recommended: The period of adulthood and late adulthood

As a child, I would play the “dream” game with my friends. We would spot a nice car and claim it as ours, walk by a nice house and say “I will live in that type of house one day with my family”. I cannot tell a lie, to this day, I say that to myself. After all, who doesn’t long for financial stability and some of the strain of life’s stress it eases. All of these comforts are nice to desire but that it not what defines me.
As a senior in college with less than two months to graduate, I have noticed that the question “Where am I going” keeps playing like a broken record in my mind. If one was to ask “what are some things that keep you up at night or gets your heart racing”, I would say it is “thinking about my future”. It is suffice to say that what our futures hold is never truly certain.
As I reflect on my college life, I wonder about the choices I have made that have led me to where I am today and that will guide me into shaping who I long to become. The things I have had to sacrifice, the support and experiences I have had with family, friends, strangers and work colleagues. I don’t know what I will be doing three months or thirty years from now but I do know that I want to have new experiences. When I graduated from high school, I knew I didn’t want to be that person that moved back to the same town and stayed there for the rest of my life. I even contemplate leaving the United States in my adult life. Who really knows, maybe those cards are still in the deck. For now, I know my immediate goals include focusing on completing my college education the best I can, and moving away from my comfort zone, broadening my horizons and taken risks.
My culture (Ghanaian and American), family and experiences shape my values to an exte...

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...t you want to do”. To me, my dreams of “Where I am Going” motivates me as I make different choices in life. These are things I desire as goals for myself
Fast forward my future to what psychologist Erik Erikson identifies as the Late Adulthood (55- 65 to Death) stage of life in his Stages of Psychosocial Development. There are two options as one reflects on their lives and they include: Integrity vs. Despair. I hope through the choices I make that I am in the Integrity department of happiness and content, feeling a sense of fulfillment and meaning and that I have made a contribution to life. Of course, there may be disappointments in life and we don’t know what the future holds and although I am nervous and anxious of where I will be in the next three months and in the next thirty years, I am also optimistic and excited to see what the future has in store for me.

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