In high school, my sophomore year I think, I made a mental calendar.
In this mental calendar, I had the date I would graduate college, the date I would be engaged, the date I would get married and the age when I would have my first kid. I would meet my future husband in college, get engaged a year after graduation, get married a year after that, and then as long as I had a kid (hopefully two) before I turned 30, my 10-year plan would be perfectly played out.
As you can probably guess, that is not how my life is looking right now, and sometimes, it causes me to put a lot of pressure on myself where pressure doesn't need to be.
Having a 10-year plan is great. It means you are very goal-oriented. You want to succeed, you are always excited for the next step and you are hopeful for the future. You know what you want.
Having a 10-year plan can also cause you have to have tunnel vision. Often times, the best things that happen to us are the unexpected. The things you didn't have planned or necessarily want to happen.
Being so focused on these plans you have for your life can make you lose sight of living in the moment. You are only this young once (cliche, I know). With 10-year plans, sometimes you can forget to enjoy where you are now. The relationships you have in this moment are beautiful. Maybe they aren't what you will have in the future, but they have a purpose here in the present.
You shouldn't be constantly thinking, "Okay so he has to be the one, I am so close to the end of college, he has to be it." What is going to happen is going to happen. Maybe your boyfriend now is who you will be spending the rest of time with, or maybe he's not. Maybe he is just before "the one" or a couple before. It doesn't matter. He is in your life now for a reason, whatever that reason may be.
What you need to focus on instead is your own happiness and growing and becoming who you are meant to be.
Love yourself.
Spend time with your friends.
Be with your family.
Cherish all of your relationships in the moment of life you are in right now. You don't get this time back.
If you are spending so much time looking at the future, you are going to forget to live your life in the present and won't have these moments to look back on. Who you are now is going to determine who you will be in the future. That one off the plan decision now might lead to the greatest adventure of your life in the future.
What if you miss out on that opportunity because you are so focused on something you can't control?
So, my fellow 10-year planner, ditch the plan for a while. It is good to have goals and know what you want in life, but live in the moment more. Don't let that plan cloud your life here in the now.
Open your eyes and enjoy this moment of your life because it is beautiful and you are so much more than your 10-year plan.
