Wow, I am an idiot. I was double checking a couple of due dates on grad school applications that I'd finished recently because I got this strange paranoid feeling about when they were supposed to be in. Turns out I was right and that I'd screwed up the deadlines for applying to the MS and PhD programs. Turns out that, out of my list of 6 schools, I only applied to two of them on time and in time to be considered for funding. Those two schools are CU-Boulder and Brandeis.
Oddly enough, these are kind of the two schools I've been most subconsciously attracted to, even if both of them have things that could keep me from going there as well. Further coincidence is that, ever since I actively decided I didn't have the time to apply at Carnegie Melon, I've been fairly seriously considering taking a year off and doing something like Americorps (something where the pay isn't great, the purpose is important, and the federal loans don't accrue interest). It would be a good way to have some new experiences and figure out how much I really want to do the whole PhD thing without giving myself a good excuse to give up on it -- an excuse like a high paying job.
Now, I have a long tradition of kind of sitting back and letting life take its course and of delaying decisions until time makes a decision for me. I wound up at Calvin in large part because I liked it well enough and didn't feel like filling out applications for the other schools on my list. The whole National Merit thing and needing to accept admission early was a nice excuse, but it didn't really factor at the time. Honestly I've been pretty satisfied with the course my life has taken living this way. Calvin has been great, and even this weird fifth year has ultimately been for the best; but I'm still anxious about this habit and what will happen if I keep on only allowing myself minimal say in my life. I just know that those few times where I have tried to be the active decider haven't turned out too well for me. Usually life kicks my ass a bit and throws me back on the path it had me going down.
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Somewhere there's a line that separates one's procrastination and apathy and one's desire to let God guide their life. Both sides result in "letting life live you", but it's the intentions that matter.
I understand that as a catholic you don't really like to talk about spirituality and religious emotion (all that raising your hands and dancing in the aisle during a worship service stuff :) ), but the question is: do you let life live you because you're apathetic towards the outcome of the decisions, because you don't want to face the decisions, or because you've handed the decisions over to God?
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