[joe-salton]

funny, i just turned 24 two weeks ago. and i can sympathize with your situation, though mine is apparently different.

currently i'm in ghana as a peace corps volunteer, teaching mathematics to ghanaian highschool students. but the particular school i'm assigned to doesn't really need me. and my best (but sometimes not very good) to find ways i can be of greater service have all basically fizzled. meanwhile a whole host of situations are basically pulling me home in four months, which is basically one year sooner than i would otherwise be leaving.

why am i going home? because i see the opportunity to be of greater service with an opportunity that has opened up there... and more than ever i'm feeling like the lessons that i came to ;earn/teach here have been accomplished in as near completion as another year would provide. the lesson moves into a new classroom -- an old classroom -- but the lessons are always new. in all likelyhood returning to the states will be a harder choice than staying here for another year. but at this point i am certian that it is the right one.

i went through a situation which is very much like what you have described when i was 20-22. i switched majors to mathematics from electrical engineering. i did this because i began to resent the path with ee would lead me to. meanwhile i enjoyed the math classes form the ee track. and i had no idea whatsoever i would do with a "useless" bs in mathematics. in a way, i still don't, though there's always teaching, which is fun, but a totally off-kilter system throughout the world.

and in a very real way i've been listening for that "sign" since i was 20. and "the sign" has never come, but when i listened to my heart and allowed myself to flow with the various catalyst which came my way, i've ended up continually on a path which seems at least consonant with my psyche. it hasn't been a pleasant path, but when looking back i ahve a certain sense of certainty that most if not all of the choices have been the right ones.

i didn't know what i wanted to do after college, and two years befor ei graduated one of my friends told me he was considering peace corps. i had never given the peace corps any consideration before that time, and actually felt it was a silly organization, but i did some research and decided that it piqued my attention for a reason. it gave me a reason to finish school and actually get a degree.

then i get here, to ghana, which is one of the last places i would have actually "wanted" to go, and i've managed to learn a whole host of lessons i probably would have been incapable of learning back home. and then things started leading me toward thinking of home again. and then things started happening which made heading home a likely reality. and then i had another moment of "aha" where i put 2 and 2 together and relaized that there was a project back in salt lake which would have a small window to begin with, but which could be a big opportunity for service. and things fell into place. even though it will probably be a rather odd job (working for my step dad's nonprofit org since he's moving out of town with my mom), making very little primary income, like the peace corps it sort of fell into place. and i'm sure there's a reaosn for it.

my point in giving you this long story is that you need to keep your ears/heart open to these things which will come to you as "signs" but which will not easily be understood as such. these signs will not be major obvious events, but little whispers in your proverbial ear which will be perfectly tailored for your psyche to understand them if you are open to the possibility of their existence.

i'm more than certain that your path will open up before you, but you had probably best stop waiting for that one big thing, and start paying attention to the small things which will mysteriously guide you along the path which is right and... you never know. if everything david talks about is true, leading up to 2012, then you may just get a big sign too. but don't count on it. what you can count on is the little things steering you in the right direction if you make yourself sufficiently steerable.

i havn't had a chance to proofread this letter and i need to leave the apirede community library now since it's after 9:00pm and it closed at 6:30 today. i hope i have sufficiently summarized both my resonnance with your situation, based on my own account, and also clearly presented my "advice" to you. enjoy your path!

-charles