Last year I finished my last year of high school. I graduated and now I have been thrown into the world to make my own way, I think I’m going to get lost! I may not have realised it at the time, but my entire life up until recently when I walked out of Westminster School for the last time has been laid out in front of me like a road map. It was a given that I would progress from Preschool to Kindergarten, to Primary School, to High School. There was absolutely no doubt in that, there wasn’t really any other path that I could take, just like everyone else. Yes, people can decide to leave school in their later years, thus leaving this set out road map, but in my family that simply wasn’t an option. But now I’ve finished high school. Here I am, standing at the edge of the map. I’m standing at a cross-roads, countless signs pointing in all different directions on the side of the road ahead of me. I don’t know what’s what, or where’s where… I’m lost without my map!

Did you get the symbolism there? I threw in just a little bit.

But anyway, now I am out of school and, in a way, on my own. I am free to make my own decisions about what I do with my life from here on out, but that also means that I am the one who has to make them; and they’re not all straight, simple ones, either! I’ll start with an easy one - the one I have already made. The year after high school I could have gone straight into full time work, I could have gone straight into university, or I could have travelled. I chose the latter option. In a way, I’m already off the road map, I’ve found a pretty decent path and I’m sticking to it. But, this year is quickly coming to a close - it’s Halloween already! Where to next year? It’s an even simpler decision, one of my options is gone. I can either work full time or go to university. I have, already, chosen university. Then I opened a whole new can of worms, because then I have decide what to DO at university. To make this long, and overly dramatic story short, I have chosen to go into law at university. I got the marks and got accepted, and I deferred to travel. Law is my path, my new road. But do I really want it to be?

Over the last 7-months travelling the world I have changed my mind about what I want to be a million times - I wanted to be an Olympic gold medalist (who didn’t in August?), I wanted to join the army, I wanted to start a charity, I wanted to be the Prime Minister of Australia, I wanted to work at the UN. All varied and pretty damn difficult goals if you ask me, (High up in the army that was, an officer… Thus the hard) and they all come with their own path. Although these goals are mostly unrealistic, there are a few that I could concievably achieve (the Olympian isn’t one of them)… When I left school I had a solid idea of who I wanted to be and what path I wanted to follow - I had been shown one road on the next map and I was sticking to it! But as I’ve come along this new, uncharted path of international travel… I’ve noticed a whole lot of new roads to be explored… What do I choose?

To summarise - I want the rest of my road map with one, straight road that will take me exactly where I want to go! Unfortunately, I somehow think that’s impossible otherwise everyone would have it…