Growing up I always had a strong sense of who I was. I started college part time before I could drive, I graduated high school at 17 after spending a year studying abroad in Italy, and I was on track to graduate from college before I could drink, until I started drinking and forgot that academics are important. I spent the first two years of college pursuing an Agriculture Engineering Degree and "building social capital" at parties. My junior year I took an internship 7 hours away from home and school because I felt that it would help me develop more as a person, and I was right. I went to an engineering career fair representing the company I was interning for where I had lunch with about 15 recruiters. They had no idea that I was an intern and spent a majority of the lunch break complaining about the 'dumb Ag Eng Tech students' and how funny it was when the students realized they couldn't be hired into engineering positions because they didn't have an engineering degree. This was the first time I had heard his and I was irate that my degree had caused me to hit a ceiling before I had even graduated. But then it hit me, it was my fault. I'm not sure if it was because it was the first time I had stayed sober for more then a week in the past two years, or just being in a completely new situation but I came to realize that I had wasted my college career and the fact that the degree I was pursuing didn't allow me to go into the field I want to was my fault because I chose the wrong program. That single event completely changed my life, and as I reflected upon why I went into Ag Eng Tech I came to realize it was because I knew the program was easy. It was so easy that I never actually got any of my text books for it and I still managed A's and B's. I can see now that I chose an easy program because I was afraid of failing, and I let that fear inhibit me and stop me from realizing my true potential. At my three month performance review I was told that most people outside of our department didn't realize I was an intern and at the end of my internship I was hired as a full time employee as long as I agreed to get a physics or engineering degree, and then put on a sabbatical to finish college.

I left my internship last year with a choice, to finish my current Ag Eng Tech program and tell myself that I would go back to school when I was older, knowing full well I probably wouldn't, or face my fear of failing head on and spend an extra two years in college now to have a B.S. in Physics.

I let the fear of failing take control of my life and it suffocated my drive, passion, determination, and feeling of self worth. Allowing the fear to take control was failing. So now I am a senior, in freshman level Physics and Math courses. I use to be the awkward kid who was really smart and younger then everyone, and now that person is my study partner, but I'm okay with it because I know that I'm on my way to finding myself again, and I wont let fear take control.

I don't think of myself as brave, but my best friend thinks that I am the bravest person she's ever met.

I jumped off my first metaphorical cliff when I was 17. Despite being a National Merit Finalist and winning math and science awards at my high school, I decided to become a creative writing major because I love to read more than anything and couldn't imagine anything cooler than writing fiction for a living.

After receiving a BA and an MA in creative writing, I realized that my degrees had not only not prepared me for many real-world careers, but that I love to READ fiction--writing it is not my gift. So I leveraged my experience in what had been a part-time job as a writing tutor to move from Florida to Arizona, knowing no one, and join a PhD program in a field called rhetoric & composition. I literally looked up rhetoric in the dictionary before writing my application and, once accepted, drove to Arizona with my cat.

After 6 years of teaching undergraduate writing courses, coordinating two different writing centers, and engaging in a line of PhD research that led to a $7000 fellowship, I realized that I didn't want to be a faculty member. I didn't want to publish or perish. I loved working with graduate students, however. How to combine the two?

So I moved to Phoenix from Tucson without a job and spent the summer (in this economy!) applying for jobs. I'm now coordinator for a program at ASU with three PhDs, a MA, and two graduate-level certificates. I work with amazing staff and students, am home by 6 p.m. so I can work on my blogging business, am fully insured for the first time in my life, and have access to on-the-job training and eventually advancement within ASU.

I now have the precise job that I never knew that I desperately wanted. However, I never would have found it if I hadn't been willing to, at several different points in my life, used my dissatisfaction as a springboard into the unknown.

(FYI, Honey is a pseudonym)

My next bold move is moving back home with my parents for a while in order to pursue my dreams. My life has changed every 3 years thus far. I've either been graduating, moving to a new city or changing positions in my company. Change is so familiar to me that if I stopped, I think I would miss the life I have now. The same life that is preventing me from doing what I want to do.

Moving home brings stability and structure into a life that is free-spirited and random. I'm willing to make the sacrifice, well, because I think I only have a casual relationship with sanity...

If I jumped off the fear bandwagon, I would be debt free. I'd be living at home. I would have an amazing job for an amazing company that believes in love like I do, and allows all my skills to be utilized.

I would have true free time, where I feel free.

In my free time I would write books for kids--or for adults who have a child-like fascination with learning about the world. My books would teach folks how find silver linings and then how to use them to their advantage. It's really hard to dream about something you've never seen. So I'd write stories about people who somehow, despite the odds, managed to do that.

Like people who dream of a president that isn't a white male, then become it. Or people who decide that they are writers, and then write. People who believed in love, then found it.

The biggest choice I have made has changed everything for me. You think that sounds like the most basic, simple statement that a person can make but it takes such bravery to admit that maybe you didn't make your own choices before. Maybe inadvertantly you were making your family's choices or your friends' choices or more likely you're making the choices of everyone else your age, choices based on the norms of the world you grew up in. I feel so proud of myself for even starting to realise this and spend that little bit longer thinking about what I really want.

This realisation came for me when I made the decision to let myself fall in love with someone I work with. Someone ranked much higher than me in the company heirarchy.

Friend sat me down and had serious talks with me. They're my closest friends and they genuinely have my best interests at heart. They said that the dynamic of our private relationship will never be equal because of our unequal positions by day. They said I'll never be my own person at work, my successes will never be my own and a career I worked to hard to get to at uni will never be owned compeltely by me.

For the first time I had to take what the people who love me most said and decide that although it had merit, it isn't the best thing for me.

I made the choice to let things unravel the way they will. I made the choice to stick to my belief that everyone's situation is different and that social decrees that lovers shouldn't work together have merit but don't apply to everyone. I finally made the choice to think about me personally, not about me as part of a social network.

I had never felt so liberated. Not when I got the marks I wanted and did the course I felt passionate about and not when I went overseas by myself (supposedly to find who I am outside of my network). It seems like something shallow but I really do believe that everyone learns to think about their own choices in different ways, from small acts of social defiance to huge life-changing events.

I feel brave and proud because I made a choice that is all about me, based 100% on how I felt. I realised I had never done that before.

It proved to me that my situation isn't part of a wider description of Generation Y. It isn't exactly the same as my friends' lives and it isn't in line with what everyone "thought I would do."

I feel like I'm an adult. I feel like I can make things work because I want them to and I've personally chosen to have my life in this way.

Since I was in high school I made a promise to myself to engage in as many opportunities as I can to serve the pupose of self-growth. My first major leap of faith decsion was to move from California to a little town in Iowa for post graduate studies at Central College.

I am now a senior and looking back it has been a decision I have never regretted because it has set me up for discovering many passions: a passion for the study and practice of leadership, a passion for gaing skills to form and hoan healthy relationship, a passion for open communication, a passion for committing to something and going after it hard and fast.

These passions have developed out of many colliagte expereinces: 3 internships (observing managerial qualities that are affective and some qualities I hope never to impose on others), going from stuggling to play golf to making the varsity team, maintaing a healthy and working relationship with my sister (still in high school), being in musical groups, taking classes I love, taking classes that help me learn things I am not the best at, learing the importance of mentor/mentee relationships, making life-long friends and soaking in evey moment of the unique experience

I have these passions brewing inside of me and now as a senior, and enterance into the job market is nearing, I am seeking what it is that I can do to best use my strenghts. College has defintately been a humbling experince for me because I have realized that I cannot be good at everything. It has really helped me to see that it is ok to seek out other people to compliment my weak points. But I want to know how I can compliment others with my strenghts. I want to wake up most evey day and answer yes to this question "Is what I am doing helping me achieve my purpose and passion in life?" With exposure to options I have confidence I can choose a calling and pursue it hard and fast.

I grew up with the distinct feeling that "following your dreams" was only meant for fairy tales. Not for a girl like me. Instead I was destined to get a job that paid the bills - nothing more and nothing less.

I knew that wasn't the life for me.

But when you have fear indoctrinated in you, let me tell you, it can be a hard thing to shake.

Take, for example, becoming a first-generation college student: Everything seemed to be a struggle - both internally and externally. Questions that kept popping up: Who does she think she is? How do you expect to pay for this? Why don't you try something closer to home/cheaper/this way or that way? Have you considered taking a year off to think things through?

But, I did it. And, while I didn't get to study abroad (talk about fear, and trust me, this wasn't fear of flying!), I did make the most of time in college, getting involved in everything from student government to the school newspaper.

Even today, with my great life, the fear is still there, creeping it's beady little eyes out from the corners of the room, ready to pounce on anything it can it gets grubby hands on, holding me back.

I can hear it in my voice. I can smell it on my breath. I can feel seep into my bones. And, fighting it can be hard.

But, I know I'm ready. I'm ready to fight it off once and for all, and live the life I knew I always could.

Even though I’m 26, I still spend a lot of time feeling caught between what I want and what my parents want for me. I fear disappointing them. I fear losing my parents approval.

This is why I dropped my theatre major in college (that I loved and adored) for a much more respectable Business Administration degree.

This is why when I quit my coffee job I found a job in an 8 to 5 office to replace it.

I make decisions that are wrong for me because I fear their response.

The first decision I ever really made that was based on what was best for me was my decision to get married. And it was the best decision I ever made. In that aspect of my life, I couldn’t possibly be any happier.

But old habits die hard and it is really hard to break the pattern that I’ve been living for the past 26 years.

Wow, this is awesome!
@Jenny, this is the first I'm learning about Crest of Your Life and what you do, it's really neat and the idea of a weekend experience is so appealing and empowering. I especially love how your team consists of people who address all aspects of life -- it sounds really well-rounded!

The substance of these comments is great, I relate to so much of what is being said.

I'm just more than two years into my career and at times, things feel very disorganized. I have an idea of where I want to go, but figuring out how to get there isn't easy. For some time now, I feel like I've straddling a fence. I really want to step onto the side with unknown pastures. I want to get there.

I am one of the few liberal arts majors I know who had a job secured six months before I graduated from college. Despite not having to worry about job searching as graduation approached, the transition from student to young professional was still very challenging. At times, it has felt even more difficult than my immigration from South Africa to the U.S. when I was 15. Believe me, I don't say that lightly!

Everyday, I'm excited about the scope of opportunity that exists. There are all these amazing, helpful, interesting things that I'd like to do and I often feel like I have more ideas than I can handle. My creativity is an asset, but I think I stay within the realm of ideas because implementing is risky on so many level. Also, I have massive student loans to pay back, which often feel really daunting. But I want to take the risk because I want to wake up really excited and invested everyday. I believe that can be my life and I think that attitude is infectious.

I am right in the middle of rocking my life. A few years back my in-laws took me to one of those all day Internet Marketing seminars and despite dreading my way into the doors at 8am on a Saturday I am now smack in the middle of owning my own Interactive Marketing Firm, all without a degree from a traditional university. Schools couldn't reach me the way that hands on experimenting can. Now I wake up everyday optimistic that I have found the right path. I work my ass off trying to not only make my company amazing, but also to better the community, whether through Rock For Hunger, helping local musicians or taking on a number of roles in associations and organizations.

What will I be rocking tomorrow? Hopefully helping people all over the world improve their communication and interaction. Helping to better the world from poverty and homelessness. Making music that inspires and makes you dance (it is possible)!