I am afraid of becoming responsible for everyone

I used to think adulthood meant becoming reasonable for myself.

Gerri g a job. Earning my own money, Paying my own bills. Making my own decisions.

That already sounded frightening enough.

I didn't realize there would come a point when my future wouldn't belongs entirely to me anymore.

Now, when I think about getting a job, I don't only think about what I want to do. I think about howmuch I will earn.

Whether it will be enough.

Whether I will be able to support my family.

Whether I will be able to help with loans and expenses.

Whether one wrong career decision could affect people other than me.

That is a different kind of fear.

When you are young, failure feels personal.

You fail an exam, you recover.

You choose the wrong course, perhaps you change it.

You make a bad decision, you learn from it.

But what happens when other people's lives become attached to your decisions?

What happens when you cannot simply afford to fall?

I am in my third year of engineering now.

There isn't much time left before placements become real.

One year

Two semesters.

Sometimes I look at that timeline and it doesn't feel like a countdown towards a career.

It feels like a countdown towards responsibility.

Everyone asks what company I want to join.

What salary I expect.

What role I want.

Which skills I am learning.

But sometimes the question inside my head is much simpler.

Will I earn enough?

Not enough to buy everything I want.

Enough to make sure the people I love are okay.

Enough to handle the things waiting for us.

Enough that an unexpected expenses doesn't become a crisis.

Enough that I didn't have to watch my family struggle whole pretending I have everything under control.

And the worst part is that don't know what "enough" even means.

There will always be another bill.

Another responsibility.

Another thing that needs money.

Sometimes I Envy people whouse biggest career question is whether they will enjoy their job.

I want to careabout that too.

But financial security has a way of making passion sound like a luxury.

People say, "choose what makes you happy".

That sounds beautiful until you remember that happiness doesn't pay a loan.

So, I keep thinking about the future.

Not the glamorous version.

The real one.

A salary credited to my account.

Money leaving it almost immediately.

Family expenses.

Responsibilities accumulating quietly.

The possibility of making a decision that turns out to be wrong.

And the terrifying thought that I may become the person everyone looks towards when something goes wrong.

I don't know, if I am ready for that.

Honestly, I don't even know if anyone ever is.

I just know that adulthood has started looking less like freedom and more like becoming someone's safety net.

And I am afraid that one day I will be so busy making sure everyone else is financially okey that I won't know what happened to the life I was supposed to build for myself.