semester, my feet are dragging. All the fleeting interests, the four-year plans, the missed (and taken) opportunities have piled up behind me, and I’m dragging them along too, like shackles across the penitentiary yard of early adulthood. At first this was the quest that allured me most about college – the freedom to change my mind, the ease at which I could shift interests. But the clock is ticking now, and I can’t move fast enough while carrying this ball and chain.
I'm limited by the shackles of my past.
source: http://atlanticportal.hil.unb.ca/acva/blackloyalists/en/context/gallery/images/chains.jpg
Now is the time to sift through the silt of these past endeavors and find something golden. I’m sure its no coincidence that this cumulative essay is due right before we determine our next steps in academia. I’m grateful for this timing, as I have been for all of the questions I’ve been made to answer in this class. My answers may no longer be true, but the questions remain, and they help shape much of my decision-making. So I look towards them now to help me make my last decision for this class – what goal will define my leadership vision? With this train of thought I’ll actually be answering two questions, not only what my goal is, but what’s stopping me from reaching that goal. The latter I’ve already introduced – my chronic indecisiveness.
I know I want to be a leader, it feels almost like a biological imperative. I know I assume leadership roles naturally. I know I’ve been generally effective as a leader. But I don’t know what I’m leading towards in my own life. I have the ability to forge any path ahead of me; all I have to do is choose one. But I’m stuck, looking back across past interests, past passions and cause
s, and seeing how easily they blew through my life plan. And I see future interests, current interests even, blowing through just as easily. It’s a windy plain of indecision – thousands of viable stalks bent out of shape by the currents of life, of distractions, of constant thought – never to flower or come to fruition.
A windy plain of indecision.
source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/media/inline/global-wheat-crop-threatened-by-fungus_1.jpg
The only way to attack my indecisiveness is through constant questioning. That’s an invaluable lesson I’ve learned in college. I’ve never been hesitant to question the world around me, but I’ve been under the illusion for quite some time that there are no questions left to ask myself. But honestly, those are the ones that matter most. Until now I’ve always thought opportunity would come to me, that circumstance would shape my future, and that I would simply adapt to change as it occurred around me naturally. But when faced with questions such as “who are you?”, “wh
at’s your passion?”, and “what is your leadership vision?”, I must be the one to take an active role in my own life, I have to make the decisions, I have to make my own answers. This reminds me of the famous Gandhi quote, “be the change you want to see in the world.” I could talk for days about my solutions to the world’s problems, to my new ideas and intricate visions, but what have I done about any of it? I’ve put very little into action. I am a passive observer of my own life. This is an extremely odd revelation coming from a complete control freak and infamous micromanager.
So what’s the problem? I’m often overwhelmed by the combination of infinite potential and limited time. I truly believe that any accomplishment is possible. What I can’t reconcile myself with is that all accomplishments are not possible, at least not within a human lifetime (as the current human lifetime stands at least, but I won’t get into that). So I’m left with a choice to make. A decision for the indecisive.
It would be very easy for me to outline my future. In fact, I could create infinitely many versions of it, including every detail. Its not the action plan that’s the problem, it’s the action. I would feel dishonest simply describing one of many hypothetical “leadership visions”, knowing it’s unlikely to become reality or even keep my interest for more than a semester. This flightiness is my deepest problem. Until I know for sure what path I want to take, I am extremely hesitant to do anything on that path. But I’ll never know if a path is right unless I start on it. I’m not a fan of retracing my steps, of moving back to the beginning. My stagnancy is caused by fear – a fear of failure, a fear of lost time, wasted potential. I suppose to sum it up, I’m frozen by my fear of death – my fear of the limited time frame I have to accomplish something.
But as we’ve been taught, love is more effective than fear. As much as I fear death, I have come to love life. That love is the first step in discovering how I’m going to affect the world, what my life is going to mean when I’m gone. So the first question in determining my leadership vision is easy – what do I love to do? The answer is slightly more complicated. There are so many things I love doing, love learning, love creating. However, being required to take courses outside of my current interests, and finally getting to take courses in them, has helped me narrow it down somewhat. Subjects I used to be interested in, such as neuroscience and Mayan history, have become less attractive to me as I’ve seen the slow pace at which they are taught at the undergraduate level.
Conversely, my required Plan II courses have given me a lot of positive direction so far. World Literature has made me more aware of my role in helping others and doing things for the benefit of society, along with asking questions that have forced me to define myself in the context of this university and the academic experience of college. Plan II biology re-introduced me to conservation ecology and pointed me towards environmental science, which is my current dual-major with Plan II. Perspectives on the Future gave me just that, a perspective from which to analyze what’s going to be most important to our civilization in the near future and what I can do to help. And finally, my freshman tutorial course, pathways to civic engagement, has introduced me to so many creative and feasible ways to affect change in my community and the world at large, which will always be a goal of my leadership vision, regardless of details. That class also introduced me to a field that I had never considered 
before this semester but that, when viewing my life from my new perspectives on my past and future, makes more sense than any career path I’ve ever considered. That field is urban planning and sustainability.
The type of future city I want to design.
source: http://interesting2008times.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/future_city_highresolution.jpg
Urban planning is going to play a huge role in the future of humankind. As populations rise all over the world, more and more people are moving into urban settings. The cities of the past have been built as huge energy consuming scars, concentrating all of the most unsustainable technologies in a high-density area. Also, cities have not been designed to facilitate local resource management, requiring all goods to be imported far distances, generally by truck or freight train. If cities continue to be built this way, we will use up our resources before our unsustainable steel structures collapse. They’ll be the graveyards of human accomplishment.
I am dedicated to making a change in the way people live, in the way they consume, and in the way they view the spaces they occupy. I feel that one of the best ways to do this is to become and urban planner with a background in sustainable design and environmental science. I have already begun taking steps towards this path. I decided to start on the track for the Environmental Science major because I feel like threats to life on earth are the most imminent and serious threat to the life of humans. In my field research class, I realized that I didn’t want to be a pure scientist collecting data, but rather wanted to apply what we already know, and are learning, about how humans interact with their environment. Urban planning combines my passion for the environment with my passion for design and community organizing. Urban planners and designers control the way people move around, how they interact with their environment, and how their environment is sustained. It is a field that is going to require creative, visionary leaders to reach its full potential.
To become one of those leaders I must first commit myself to a career path, something I have always avoided. I must conquer my fear of failure, of dissatisfaction, and simply start. It’s possible I will change my mind in the future, but for now I plant to stay on the track I’ve started on. My first step was adding my environmental science major. Within that major, I will concentrate in geographical studies and take classes that focus on land use and resource management. If that major is not satisfying, I will switch to a major in environmental engineering. I am currently considering adding an additional major or minor in architectural studies to develop the technical skills involved in drafting and designing city plans. This path is going to be truly interdisciplinary, which will go along with the Plan II curriculum well. All of my classes will add insight into the problem of organizing people into places that best serve the environment and thus humanity. A writing component is also necessary, because effective communication will be essential in proposing ideas to city boards and clients. Also, there needs to be community support behind all the changes that are going to be implemented in cities, so communication is again important.
Outside of academia, there are many steps I could take to ensure not only a successful career in urban planning, but also garner support for the way I feel cities need to be built and operated in the future. Most likely, I will start by interning at an architecture firm over a summer, which I would arrange through my father who is a prominent architect in Dallas. He has already connected me with some landscape architects and urban designers in Austin, and I might be working with one on a research project this semester. I also need to start developing my creative vision more seriously. I see the cities of the future functioning like trees – self-sustaining, evolving, efficiently designed closed systems that give back to the environment as they support human life and happiness. This requires an intersection of innovative technology, creative resource management, a deep understanding of sociology, and an artistic aesthetic vision. Because of this, my education is going to last a long time. At some point, however, I will make the shift from institutional education to real-world experience.
There are multiple options I have for getting started in the field of urban planning and sustainable design. I could go into architecture and work for a private firm. I could be a publicly employed city planner. Or, I could go into the non-profit field and promote change from the roots up. I feel like I am best suited for the last option, as it would allow me more freedom in my work and the opportunity to be my own boss. I don’t work well as an employee – I always have to be in charge of anything I work on. Creating my own non-profit committed to socially and ecologically responsible city planning will require lots of experience in many fields that I will gain during my education. It will also require me to build connections with people who could be potential resources for my business. That, I feel, will be the greatest gift this university will give me. Already, so many of the people I’ve met I can tell are destined for great things. I’ve also been able to meet professionals already working in this field. Austin is at the forefront of the types of changes I want to see in the world. Being here will help me be the change.
I know all of this is tentative, but I have already found a lot of support on this path. I know there are other issues out there, other problems I want to solve, but this seems the most attainable, and best suited to the type of education I’ve received thus far. I am still afraid that this might not be the right path, that I’ll have to back track and lose much of my limited time. But I’ve realized - if I never go down a path, I’ll never know what I could’ve found there. I might as well experience things while I am alive, regardless if they fit into an ‘action plan’ or a career path. I know I want to change the world, I know I want to lead myself and others through life strongly and with purpose.
But who knows, I might just end up in business school.
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