Know Thyself

     In just seven weeks I'll be leaving for Prague to get a TEFL certification. I'm unbelievably excited, but also indescribably terrified. This is without a doubt the riskiest thing I've ever attempted. I'm about to leave home, train for a job in which I have no background, and then hope to find a place willing to hire someone with no experience other than having grown up in the United States and whatever teaching I manage to stumble my way through in Prague. It's a huge leap of faith. But it's a step I feel I have to take. My whole life I've planned things out the way I wanted them and when reality intruded, I ignored it until I had no choice but to accept that things had changed. I spent a miserable two and a half years in college deluding myself that Physical Therapy was my future, when really I've been an English major practically since birth. I've held on to friendships longer than I should have because I didn't want to believe that people could change so drastically.  I've gotten in trouble (not real trouble, mostly emotional) for placing too much trust in the rational, planning ahead part of my brain, and it's time to change that.
     Going to Prague with no real plan forces me to live in the moment. I don't know which country, which continent, I'll be in 3 months from now. I could be living in Prague still, I could have found a job in Peru, or Thailand. I'm ready to let myself be spontaneous, to throw myself into the world and trust that someone will catch me. As I've been telling people my plans (or lack of them, really) the most common question has been: Why Prague? My answer, at least in my head, is: Why not Prague? I don't have anything holding me here, no solid job once my AmeriCorps contract runs out mid-July, no relationship, nothing but my family. Granted, many of my friends are still in Minneapolis, but many more have left to explore the world on their own terms. And now it's my turn.