When I was fourteen, I took a class that changed my life.

It was an introduction to psychology class. I sat in the front and stared on, enthralled, as I was taught about synapses and superegos. It was a wealth of information unlike anything I had ever learned before. I did well in school, but there were no subjects that ever really stuck out to me. Until this one.

When I was fourteen, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a psychologist, and I took that passion and ran with it. I ran all the way to college. Four years later, and psychology still had my heart. And in college, it’s a joy and rarity to actually enjoy what you’re studying.

Deep into my junior year, I was in a clinical psychology class and we were talking about the different kinds of professions you can have in the wonderful world of psychology. We also discussed the education requirements and what’s needed to be able to get into a graduate school to make it all possible. My professor went in depth about what each career entailed. I perused the options I had for my future, and realized none of the options were anything I could see myself pursuing. None of these options were what was going to make me happy.

It was at this time I came to a difficult realization: I didn’t want to be a psychologist anymore. My six-year dream had up and left me. What do you do when your calling dialed someone else? What do you do when the only thing you planned for gets foiled? What do you do when you have to wake up and design an entirely new dream? What next? Well, I’m still figuring that out.

I’m in too deep to start over, and maybe that’s for the best.

It finally hit me: you can enjoy learning about something, but sometimes that doesn’t always translate to being your path in life. My mom would always tell me, “I just can’t imagine you sitting around listening to people’s problems.” I used to reply, with a wide grin, “I just want to help people.” As if there was only one way to do that.

I guess I could be pretty angry that I wasted my time studying something that I don’t want to have a career in. But the thing is, I don’t believe anything is wasted. The classes I took were knowledge I gained, knowledge that cannot be taken away. Knowledge is power, and while some days I wish I could have figured it all out a lot sooner, I realize that the classes I took were valuable and the time I spent was worth it.

So, the million-dollar question. The end all, be all: what’s next? You keep going. I am a senior in college and I’m graduating in a few months. There’s no going back. I’m going to graduate with a degree in psychology and relish in all the hard work I put in and all the days I was happy studying something I loved. It wasn’t a viable option for me to just start over. But I had a decent amount of credits to push toward something else: a double major.

A new passion, sociology. And then I picked up a complimentary minor as well, hoping that some future employer would find a statistics background helpful. Frankly, I don’t know what’s next or what to do. I don’t have all the answers. What I do have is advice:

The truth is, you’re always changing. And your interests and desires change with you. It’s inevitable. The future is always a little gray, and that's okay. It’s okay to not have a plan for once and it’s okay to take some time to figure out exactly what you want to do. Starting over isn’t quitting, and there’s no shame in needing time to soul search. I wish I had.