Three years ago, amid a global pandemic, I “realized” what I was meant to do in life and what my purpose was as I committed to Iona before my freshman year. However, little did I know that like Jon Snow, I really knew nothing.  

Before committing to Iona, I always told everyone that would listen that I wanted to be one of those journalists on those ESPN sports talk shows like First Take and now defunct, The Jump. 

As most freshman do in the early stages of their college career, I took an orientation class, that had to be taken on Zoom because of the pandemic, with the “professor” Daniel Arndt. For one of the assignments, he asked us to fill out this worksheet that was titled “Putting It All Together,” which was intended to be a plan of what you’d do during your college tenure to meet your goals. 

In this worksheet, my goals for my time here were rather optimistic and I achieved some goals, while factors such as COVID-19 and life not working out the way I intended—whether that’s because of failed relationships, family emergencies or unforeseen circumstances—derailed some of the others.  

Completely unrelated, I finished watching “Loki” a couple weeks ago, one of my favorite shows, which saw the reinvention of Tom Hiddleston’s Loki across the series’ two seasons. 

The show saw the development of Loki come full circle in a kind of ouroboros moment. The series finale episode is named “Glorious Purpose,” which is the same name used for the series’ first episode. The series and the development of this character came full circle between these two points because Loki went from being a character that was dead set on achieving one thing fresh off the events of “Avengers” to realizing that the idea of being burdened with such purpose was a fallacy and he had a second chance to rethink and rediscover his sense of purpose. 

This article also bears the same name of ‘Glorious Purpose’ because along the way, I’ve constantly re-evaluated what I thought my sense of purpose was because of my confidence in a silly little worksheet from my freshman year. 

People say that hindsight is 20/20, but really, I think it came down to being naive, young and not realizing that I was meant for more. 

Along the way, I doubted what my self-proclaimed purpose was and constantly battled with myself as I wondered if I was made for what I wanted to do or if I should head in a different direction. This doubt kept me from committing to my major sooner and committing to this newspaper that I love so much that I wish I had joined it sooner. 

Every step of the way, due to my lack of confidence and fear of commitment, I was noticeably a step behind of the curve that I set for myself. Despite myself, I always seemed to end up exactly where I needed to be to end up in the position that I’m in now. 

Just like my college career, my last article for this newspaper is nothing like how I intended or expected it to be. I love it and I hate it at the same time, but now I know who I want and need to be. After freshman year, I realized that most purpose is more burden than glory, and I see no better purpose now than to use the power of my words to change the world, reach people emotionally, make them smile and encourage them to be better people by setting that example. For me, for you and for all of us. May we meet again.