Me and two colleagues (Leeanne Meadows and June Latney – The Sisterhood of Boundless therapists) did a presentation to a Sociology class at Jacksonville University last night. While waiting for the class to arrive we talked about what we remembered from our own lives when we were in their position and what college meant to us.
As I watched the students file in and listened to their questions I remembered not being certain of what I wanted to do in life. Oh, I had an inkling but I have always admired those people who at a very young age see something and know for certain this is what they want to do and then proceed to do it. I took the more round about approach of “Try a lot of things and see how they fit”, and learned a lot along the way. I can’t say which is better but do know I enjoyed learning what I did and saw traveling life’s highway.
I have already given you a hint of my worldview, and so my advice to those students is this: Go down a few rabbit holes sort of like Alice in wonderland. Decide on a path and wait to see where it decides to lead you. The advantage of youth is that you have time to experiment. Try something just to see if you can do it and add that to your store of knowledge. As you build up that store of knowledge, stop every now and then and attempt to analyze how the various pieces now fit together in terms of where you currently seem to be going.
Go down a few rabbit holes by reading the life story of people you have seen on the news or admired from history. Distant mentoring is letting the struggles and triumphs of others guide you, which can save a lot of time and prevents reinventing the wheel. So explore people from a broad range of life choices because casting a wide net will give you many different perspectives and what I think you will find is that there are very few charmed lives that didn’t at first require focused hard work.
Dream big and decide to go down a few rabbit holes to discover how to write large what seems like the usual path that others have taken. 
Humans are imitative creatures and tend to do what they have seen others do. Nothing wrong with that, just ask yourself how can I add to the mix in a way that will generate more, create extra, or allow others to see or do something in a more expansive way.
I like the rabbit hole concept which puts less pressure on you to achieve, which generates stress, but focuses on developing a sense of wonder to understand a concept and then master it. And so all you Alice and Alex’s out there, I just saw a rabbit hopping by … the journey begins!