It seems like most people I know have a life plan. They know what they're going to be doing when they graduate. They have an idea of where they're going to work and where they're going to live, and they know how many years it will approximately take to accomplish these plans.
I don't have a plan. All I have is a vague idea of what I'd like to do when I graduate. I know I want to get into a field where I can utilize my skills as a writer and an English major, but where that will take me I cannot say. With that uncertainty, there's no telling where I might have to relocate to in order to fulfill that dream. I can't even say how far away from home I'm willing to move. I keep telling myself that when and if that time comes, I'll figure it out then.
So I don't have a plan. For a long time, this bothered me, and it still does sometimes, but not nearly as often. I'm making decisions as they come to me, figuring out my life as I go along. On the surface, this sounds like a horrible idea, until you understand that a lack of planning does not equate to a lack of preparedness for life. I am still learning and preparing myself for the world, I'm just not trying to pin down a future that is likely to change. Ultimately, I realized that by not having a plan, I am giving myself a wide array of opportunities to choose from in my future. There is no concrete thing that I want to do, and realizing this made me feel less insecure about my lack of planning. My fear of the future has lessened as a result.
Parents and professors emphasize the importance of planning for the future. They aren't wrong. Planning for the future is exceptionally useful, but it's overdone. The thing about planning your life is that you really can't. You can say where you're going to be in five years, but you never know what is going to happen between now and then. Life is so unpredictable that I've stopped trying to plan so much. It's natural that we want to make something so unstable as life into something steady and predictable, and planning is our way of attempting to do so. I'm not saying that it isn't possible to plan, I'm saying not to get your heart set on an outcome that might never happen. Nothing is set in stone. Keep your options open and don't be afraid to stray from what you initially planned. If you refuse to step off the path you've created for yourself, you could miss tons of opportunities.
It's perfectly okay to know what you want to do and where you want to end up in life, just don't let your vision for the future imprison you. Set goals and strive to achieve them, but don't let them blind you to everything else out there. Accept the unpredictability of life and see it as an opportunity, not an enemy.
