If You Had a Crystal Ball..
February 7th, 2025
Photo Credits: Zoe Romeu
Writer: Brooke Edelman
Editor: Carly Schneider
On the first day of my last semester at the University of Michigan, my professor asked me and my peers a seemingly easy question: “If you had a crystal ball, would you want to know where you end up?”
Yet, as I sat in my Emerging Adulthood class, a course geared towards the transition to adulthood and the psychology behind it, I figured a combination of head nods and verbal yeses would permeate the room. After all, wouldn’t we want to know that everything was worth it, to know that everything worked out, to know that we didn’t need to worry about a particular instance that caused us so much stress?
I was proven wrong. As it turned out, my peers and I were unknowingly on the same page: dreading conversations about post-graduation plans and — the most panic-enticing word a graduating senior could hear — our future. But, as we’re all about to approach the uncertainty, it feels like we’re leaving our futures in the hands of employers reviewing our applications, taking endless interviews, and searching for different opportunities. Ironically, not one student opted for the certainty a crystal ball would provide.
As silly as it seemed, I pictured myself with a psychic, like the ones in the movies: the magic and light circling the inside of the sphere, creating the power to see into the future. Within this scene, however, I didn’t seem to care for the grand reveal but rather was mesmerized by the zig-zags and random directions the light took to create the final picture.
We spend a lot of our time thinking about the end goal — thinking about the dream job that will land us the ideal life, thinking about which decision to make that’ll domino effect our way into the future we want to create. While we’re thinking about decisions for years to come, we’re missing the most important ones at the moment. It’s necessary to try new things, putting your foot into a door you never thought you’d open, only to find out it’d lead you to your destination.
We constantly seek comfort. We want to know the final destination so we feel more comfortable on the journey. I’d be lying if I didn’t wish to know that in ten years I’m happy with how things fell into place and that the stops made along the way were all worth it, but I would also be doing myself a disservice if I didn’t appreciate the journey that got me there.
There’s a lot that I want to know. But there’s also a lot that I want to do. The ambiguity of our young adult years — and any stage in our life for that matter — should be made up of lessons, intentional or not. Take the risk. Take that job. Make the move. Steer off the beaten path. One day, when the crystal ball is clear to you, you’ll be happy to know that you found meaning in the strokes that painted the picture of your life.
