It can be said that for a lot of people, as college draws closer, the more they realize that they really have no idea what they want to do. They did everything they had to get good grades and acceptable test scores, but when it comes to now making a decision on their future they feel like they have no knowledge whatsoever.

It’s a lot for someone who is just barely an adult to decide.

Stress was mounting up, and even then it wasn’t just for people who were unsure about what they wanted to do for college. Case in-point, Tao knew what he wanted to do, but he still felt like he was walking in the dark while being wholly unprepared.

Getting papers together, figuring out prices, visiting colleges, getting a portfolio ready, trying to reassure himself that his skills were enough to let him be a concept artist, it was a lot to do. And if he were being honest with himself, Tao could confidently say that it was slowly but surely burning him out. He could see it in the horizon, the brick hurtling towards him with the words “BURNOUT” written on it with bold letters. And the sad part was that Tao was going to let it smash into his face.

He couldn’t afford to just stop, he had to keep working to at least make sure he had a place to go.

Yet because of him constantly working until coming close to collapse, his mind was also taking the opportunity to be an absolute jerk. The human mind is a fascinating thing, capable of amazing feats. But it could also be one of the biggest jerks a person might ever know.

It has taken upon itself to worry about everything and nothing, over-thinking about the tiniest details to the point where Tao just wanted to slam his head against a wall if only to slightly shut his brain up. But, to make life even more frustrating, Tao’s brain decided that motivation wasn’t necessary for him to have.

Lots of things to do, a brain freaking out over unnecessary things like if he remembered to duplicate a file that he most definitely had literally a few seconds ago, and having no motivation to do anything that needed to be done. To put it shortly, Tao was in a situation where everything could just come crashing down upon him at any given moment.

Yeah, he was happy to leave high school, elated even. High school had not been particularly kind to him. But even so, the stress that graduation has brought makes him slightly wish it wasn’t happening. At least not so soon. Sadly, despite his wishes for a break of some sort, time moved on. All he could do was move along with it, slowly making his way forward as time dragged him along for the ride.

Presently, Tao was sitting in his school’s library, far in the back and away from anyone else who might be there. Tired eyes gazed at a computer screen, its blue light reflecting off of his rectangular glasses. Almost mindlessly, Tao clicked through email after email, sorting through the spam and the ones that were actually important. And even from there, he made sure to note which emails he would have to be at home to do and which ones he could reply to now.

It was boring, it was tedious, and Tao felt like he was slowly losing his mind. It felt like an endless stream. Delete this spam mail, reply to this email from his guidance counselor, ignore the email from a college he was never interested in to begin with, looked at the notifications sent from Twitter telling him when a person he follows tweeted, write in a notebook what he would need for one email when he got home, and on and on and on and on.

Leaning back to stretch, Tao removed his glasses and rubbed his hand over his face, letting out a tired sigh, “Is it really even worth all the effort at this point?”

Please Subscribe to read the full chapter