Taking Control Of My Life Decisions

once i licked my finger

and held it to the wind

in the hope that its direction

would give me an idea of where to go

but i am not the wind

neither the trajectory of the sun

or the pull of the tides

or even the tip of a flame

for i am none of these things

 

– i need to be the compass i follow

---

Following on from the lovely messages I received on my first poetry post, I thought I’d share another little poem I wrote a few weeks ago. This one details my uncertainty about the future, and my inability to believe in myself to make the ‘right’ decision about my life, whatever that might be.

As a young person, there has to be a time in which I take control of what I’m doing: at twenty, it would be impractical and unhelpful for someone else to be telling me which way to go at every crossroad. Some decisions I find easy to make by myself. For example, taking a gap year and going to live in Australia was something I felt strongly I wanted to do and was capable of doing. But other decisions, like knowing if I should go to physical university rather than continue distance learning, or deciding whether to spend money on a new pair of jeans or not, are much harder for me.

I’m not too sure what makes a decision a hard or easy one to make, but either way they have to be made by someone. It can be easy to be told what to do by someone else, or just follow in the footsteps of another. But that’s not often the path that will lead to the most satisfaction, happiness or success. This poem is a reminder to myself that I can’t always hope for someone else to conveniently pitch up with an answer at every questionable hairpin bend; I need to learn how to make three-point-turns alone.

---

My Social Media Links:

Twitter (@alysjournals)

Instagram (@alystravels)

Pinterest (@alysdc)

Bloglovin’