Let me preface this by saying it's okay. No – you're okay. Regardless of what life is throwing at you, everything will turn out alright.
It's so easy for things to seem like they're spiraling out of control. Emotions are so heightened while we're at school. Not getting a text back seems like the end of the world as it just adds to a list of stresses to your day. Not getting an A on an exam makes you question your intelligence, if you belong where you are or if you should just give up. We're being measured. How well we perform on exams, how we react to certain situations, how quickly we are to quit. But get this, life isn't a test. There are no correct answers and it's not black and white.
If your first plan doesn't work out, that doesn't mean you lose the game and that's that. You have unlimited opportunities in life. Change your mind every day if that's what will fit best with how you feel at the present moment.
My entire life, I had a plan. From an early age, I knew what college I would attend and where life would take me after. Granted, I'd alter the plans as I got older... but I was never without one.
Success was basically handed to me my first eighteen years. I knew what I wanted, I went after it, and I would get it. It could have been that I was one of the only people going after these positions and varsity spots, or that I earned it fair and square. But after those eighteen years, it changed. I was thrown into a whirlwind where it was more than common to have thousands of applicants to any given organization, all vying for the same spots. I no longer came up on top. Slowly but surely, despite my best efforts, I had nothing to show for my first year of college.
In the beginning when people asked my major, I was able to tell them confidently what I'd be studying. I quickly learned that the business school wasn't for me. Everything changed. Then, when people asked me what I was studying I had only one answer that felt sufficient. I was floating.
Floating.
That became my mindset for everything. I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go from here, or how to get involved. The last thing I wanted to do was to get lost in the crowd.
It was so easy to panic. For the first time ever, I was unsure. The quick-witted girl who has an answer to everything didn't have an answer.
After a while, I realized there was a huge window that opened for me. I wasn't on this skinny path where my options were limited. I could do, study, and be whatever I wanted. I shaped my life based on what made me happiest.
Having a plan isn't what is necessarily important. You can learn so much more if you stray from the plan you made for yourself. Knowing everything will happen when you experience everything. And when your first, second, and third plans don't work out like you hoped, it's only because there's still more that you need to know. More paths you need to stray from before deciding on the final plan.
I don't have a plan anymore. I have an idea, but not a plan. And I'm okay. I don't need one right now, that would just limit me. And the last things any of us need are limits.
