I was you once. I had my whole future in place mentally like a road map of the United States. I had high school planned out so much that I watched my high school days go by. I knew where I wanted to go to college, what I wanted to study, and how many years it would take me to finish. I had planned where I would get a job after college, from the State to the City, all the way down to the company I would work for. I planned where and how I would meet my future husband, where we would get married, what we would name our kids, where they would get baptized and where they would go to school. Then life changed on me. The things I had mentally planned for and thought would all line up for me didn’t. I didn’t go to the college I planned to go to. I decided I didn’t want to be a teacher and I didn’t want to live in New York because it’s not the place for me and my southern girl heart. My life changed and so did my plans.

My fellow life planner,

It is perfectly okay to plan out every single detail of your life. There is nothing wrong with it at all as long as you understand one simple thing; plans can change. Not only can plans change, but so can people. People evolve along with the rest of the world. Just think we used to be cavemen and now most of us don’t even know what caves look like. No one can really know what the future holds. Not your horoscope you read weekly on snap chat or the psychic you visit for fun when you go visit Bourbon Street in New Orleans. You must know that life throws curveballs at you and you won’t know how to react. It is a rarity for someone to completely plan out their life and literally watch every single thing they planned fall into place. Life doesn’t work like that. You can control and predict and plan some aspects of life but not all of it.

So go tour the college you don’t think you’ll like. Go out on a date with the random guy from biology. Become friends with the girl in your English class that you’ve never seen before. Just because you didn’t plan it for yourself doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t happen. By no means do you need to stop living your life adventurously just because it isn’t in the life plan that you created for yourself. Otherwise, you may regret all of the chances you didn’t take, the people you didn’t meet, and the places you didn’t visit. It is always okay to plan your life but you have to also make sure you’re living it at the same time. What is the point in planning a life you have no intention of living? There isn’t one! So, my dear that believes she has to completely plan out her life, do so but have fun and enjoy it. As you’re doing so though, I implore you to live life to the fullest. Live the life that you plan for yourself to the fullest and accept the parts and things in your life that you can’t change with open arms and make the most of it.