... confused It's past midnight and I'm still at school studying for my psychology final. The more I read from my textbook, the more distraught I'm becoming. For the past year, I've been struggling with the fact that I do not have a clear career plan for my future. I have two choices and they are both dear to me. The first is to enter ministry; which kind (eg. as Protestant pastor, Catholic priest, academic theologian, or even monkhood!) I do not yet know. The second is to devote myself to psychology, to its practice and to the study of it. I'm nearing the end of my first year at the University of Toronto. However, a year ago I did not even want to come to university. I wanted to pursue a spiritual life and thought that secular academics would hinder me. Instead of going to university, I wanted to join a monastery to live a secluded life of prayer and study. I ended up going to the Catholic Seminary St. Augustine's in Toronto to talk with their career counselor. He persuaded me not to neglect the opportunity to study at a university, and recommended to me the Christianity & Culture program at the University of Toronto. So I applied and got admitted, with the intention to study Christianity in their renowned program. However, as I went through the different courses that were available to me, I came across the Psychology program and realized that it was meant for me. A side of me that I've carried my whole life was as this introverted observer of people. From elementary school, people would constantly tell me that I would one day become a psychologist because of the interest and insight I sometimes had in the psyches of people. To this day it is a driving force in me to understand others. But now I need help to understand myself. Since my conversion experience at 18, my one life conviction was in the saving power of Jesus Christ. For the truth of Him, I would live and die. But Lord, you created me in a way to constantly ponder and peer into the mysteries of the human mind and heart. My whole thought engine is intrinsically geared toward this realm of the human experience. Thinking is my compulsion. Even before I ever studied the Psychology modeled by the academic world, I can recount neverending highways of questions and theories flooding through my mind as a child. As I read the university texts now, some things are new to me - but ultimately it feels like second nature. I've thought about pursuing graduate studies in Psychology, and perhaps teaching or writing in the field. This is as much a passion to me as it is my God given lot. So, on the one hand I'm interested in the depravity of mankind - addictions, interpersonal conflicts, suicide, etc. - but on the other, I'm convinced that the one cure for this depravity is in Jesus. Lord help me! | 
