This way or that way? Fly, Butterfly, FLY....

While yesterday was thanksgiving, this is not the aim of today's post. (Although I am grateful, every day). Today's post is simply allowing my thoughts and words flow, no holding back.
I am at this point in my life where there are so many roads I can take. Graduation approaching, internships being tossed around in my mind, opportunities to present research, publish articles, many possibilities arising at once. Odd, this whole year, I thought all of my work was for nothing. I was just an average graduate student working tirelessly to reach some obscure goal... graduate? job? PhD? publication? independent research? All of the above, I guess. Yet, everything has been somewhat slow to come to fruition.... (Disclaimer: my idea of time is likely not your idea of time, considering I want what I want and I want it yesterday.) Although I am putting future degrees on hold until I figure out where it is I want to be, and what it is I would like to be doing, I am gearing up to graduate with my MPH. With that comes where do I work? Where will I move? Should I stay in research until my next degree? If I do that, won't it interfere with NIH loan repayment? But I'd like more research experience and practical experience, can I combine the two? Arghhhhh.
Yes, that is what my mind has been like for the last three weeks. Granted, I do not graduate until August, but I must be in a field placement of my choosing soon. I also would like to have more of my "own" research under my belt before leaving. So I chip away. I take the left foot, right foot, what's in front of me to do. I thoroughly enjoy (most of) the projects I have as current jobs and all of my volunteer positions. Yet, for me it's always more, more, more. I want more. To do more. To see more. To BE more. Isn't that the basic desire? Isn't that what it tends to boil down to for most of us, especially those of us in the world of academics? Yet, when opportunities present themselves, I get scared. Sure, I said I wanted all of these things, but I didn't expect THIS, or I'm not good enough for THAT.... the life and times of self-defeating thoughts....
Today, I am letting those thoughts go and just maximizing on the opportunities given. Writing the best I can write, contributing as much to my fields as I can, thinking outside of the box, and just saying yes when once in a lifetime opportunities come my way. Because my brain may tell me all these things about me not being good enough, but my soul says go for it. My Spirit says you are good enough... when I am quiet enough to hear this, quiet enough to be still and know.... Honestly, all I really know at this moment is my God/HP/Spirit, did not bring me this far to drop me now. And that is good by me.