Why do I do what I do? - 28

I wish that there was a way to pause my life for a while, just put everything on hold and just have some time to think. There are a lot of ideas, thoughts, emotions, opinions, and desires floating around my head, and they push me in the general direction of where I think I want to go. It's a 'general' direction for two reasons: first, because it is a literally general direction - I want to be able to have lots of varied skills and use them all - and secondly because it's a very broad idea. I think I want a career in technology, since that's a force that could shape (and is shaping) the world, it has a very wide scope, and because it has a huge base of cool stuff that I can tap into, among other reasons. Maybe I'll do some startups and see where that takes me (though I highly doubt that I will be successful, the experience will be informative. And, ya know, who knows?), but I genuinely don't know. I guess that's acceptable at my current stage in life (in school).

I want to stop for a while and just examine myself. Why do I want to do these things? I am constantly pursuing various different subjects, music, art, programming, math, language, etc. but what is it all for? A career? No, that's not it. A simple desire for knowledge? What's the point of that? Fulfillment? But if it's fulfillment, how is constantly chasing learning objectives going to fulfill me?

I'm worried that I'll spend years doing things that I think I want, just to get clarity later and realize that what I was doing was the wrong direction after all. I guess all I can do is try things until I find out what I like the most.