When we’re children, I think it’s safe to assume we all dream about what we will be when we grow up. As for myself, all I really did was imagine bigger and better scenarios for what I believed my life could be.

I lived in the books I read, and in the thoughts I dreamed up as I lay in bed. I would relive a scene, over and over, until it was so real that I could feel every sensation that I imagined. My life was going to be as follows: I would be a writer, that was clear. I would go to college in a city, live on my own, and fall in love all in a neat timeline.

I would be extroverted, attractive, mysterious and intelligent. I held these dreams close to my heart, even when it became clear that life is not a neat little book, as I once believed it to be.

Ten years later, here I sit. I am not a published author, I am not extroverted, I am not living in a big city on my own. I couldn’t help but be disappointed in the way my life turned out as soon as I stepped onto a college campus and saw, for the first time, that my dreams were not a perfect reality. So what do you do when your dreams are bigger than your reality?

I am not alone in being a young person who is disappointed in the circumstances they are met with. And I don’t believe I’m alone in the ripple effect that it causes in your life. When you so clearly plan a future that cannot be, what do you do to cope? Grasp at straws, in my case. Cling to what you know is reality, white-knuckled and wide-eyed. So here we sit, as a generation, caught between unreachable dreams and the solidity of logic. As someone who braved both waters, there’s a better way.

I spent the four semesters of my college career dedicated to the idea I was going to be an English teacher. It was a logical choice. I was good at English, good at teaching, good with kids and there is a sense of security that comes with the job. There was only one catch: I didn’t really want to be a teacher.

Now, let me clarify, I wanted to do good. I wanted to revamp the education system, I wanted to open the eyes of young people to the beauty of English, and I wanted to help. But I also believe that teaching is a calling, and I never had that calling. After many anxious nights, I sent the email that would send my logic spiraling into the ground. I dropped education from my major, leaving me a plain-old English major.

What was I thinking? An English major alone will get you nothing but a barista’s apron, or so all the jokes say. But the fear didn’t last long, and in fact, I felt a weight lifted from my shoulders. I had done my due research and found a new career prospect — but it would require more work, more schooling and the job certainty isn’t as comforting as a teaching job. But I was relieved. I was free of my nonsense dreams of living a carefree life as a writer, and free of the burden of living a life of logic. The job field, and your future, is not black and white. We aren’t confined to being either successful and hating our lives, or living on the streets.

So, to those of you embarking on your college career, think on these things. There is a balance between your big dreams and your big reality, and in that middle part is a future that is bigger than the dreams you dreamed. The key is to go out and find it.