What course will our lives take? How stable is the United States? What promise of jobs and success await college graduates? What can we say about the future with any level of confidence? We ponder such perennial questions in “Uncertainty,” a collection of columns offering advice, humor and courage.
I woke up a few weekends ago to flood warnings and torrential downpour outside my cousin’s Santa Cruz apartment. The rain provided a serene soundtrack to my morning until I realized that I had a five-hour drive ahead of me –– five hours in which my windshield wipers didn’t stop and I had a few too many white-knuckle moments on Interstate 5 than I’d like to admit.
I like solo road trips because they let me do two of my favorite things: be alone and listen to music. I have a pretty eclectic music taste, but found myself listening to a new-to-me genre while I battled stress behind the wheel that day.
Christian folk is something I’ve written off since my disillusionment with religion from attending Catholic high school. But nothing in that moment could’ve been more soothing than the voice of singer Emily Scott Robinson telling me that “it’s okay if, for tonight, dear, there are things you do not know.”
I gravely wish I could relate to the blind optimism expressed by people of faith. I felt like guitar-calloused hands were hugging me while assuring manifestations were whispered in my ear by the nicest of southern accents. Self-confidence seemed so foreign to me in that moment that I was clinging to any ounce of it that I could find.
Aside from the pressing fear that I didn’t know if I’d make it home in one piece, my life is full of the unknowns Robinson sings about in her song “Hymn for the Unholy.” I don’t know if one of the seemingly hundred internships I’ve applied to this summer will accept me. I don’t know if pursuing a career in the struggling industry of journalism will pay off. I especially don’t know if this country will still have its democratic integrity by the time I graduate.
Some level of these existential worries are normal for college students. The four years of undergrad are a weird segway from teenage carefreeness to “real” adulthood; we’re trying to grow into the people we want to be without entirely abandoning where we came from. But Gen Z’s college years are filled with these stresses and more.
We are the first generation not promised to be financially better off than our parents. They didn’t worry about generative artificial intelligence invading the job market or climate change destroying the planet before their kids could enjoy it.
My time at USC isn’t guaranteed to pay off. It’s on me to make the investment of time and money (a lot of it) worthwhile. All these failed promises and guarantees only exacerbate our already existing levels of uncertainty. But uncertainty isn’t inherently negative.
The unknown presents opportunity. Opportunity for the worst to happen, but also for the best.
I try to remind myself of this whenever I start feeling the burden of uncertainty. The difference between fear and excitement is your mindset. Yeah, it’s unsettling to not have my summer plans nailed down, but maybe I can take a month to backpack Southeast Asia like I’ve been wanting to do for years. Journalism doesn’t offer a lot of job security at the moment, but it’ll give me a chance to fight for the future of this country.
Life is full of uncertainty, even after the college experience. The sooner we learn how to deal with it the better off we’ll be. Aristotle wrote, “the more you know, the more you don’t know.” Experience doesn’t produce certainty – it just gives you wisdom in how to deal with not knowing.
So next time you’re met with the unknown, meet it with confidence. Take your next step with faith in nothing but yourself.