Imagine the person you’ve been crushing on from afar for years finally accepts your invitation to coffee or dinner. Your stomach is eating itself from nervousness, you fret over what clothes to buy, and you’re already writing your wedding vows in your head. Then it turns out your crush actually kind of sucks when you get to know them. They do racist impressions of Nelson Mandela or listen to Creed or whatever. Shitty feeling, right?

Now imagine you finally got the internship that you’ve wanted forever. Everyone from your academic advisor to your mailman has been telling you how great this is for you and your career. Everything’s looking up, right? Then it turns out you despise working at said internship. The work sucks, the people suck, and you find yourself sucking more every day.

Having a great job or finding a truly rad significant other are on the top of most people’s list. When I mentioned either of the two scenarios, you probably thought of a specific person or job. Tag who you thought of in the comments! Just kidding, don’t. I won’t be responsible for bringing that awkwardness into the world.

But here’s the thing: everything you want could end up being terrible for you. And you have no idea either way. When I was 15, I told my high school’s academic advisor that I was going to be an anesthesiologist or a psychiatrist. I wanted to go to Colombia University. Those plans clearly didn’t work out. In the long run, that’s a very good thing. If I somehow became a Colombia medical student, I would have been miserable. Sometimes reality saves us from ourselves.

Dreams are good to have, but dreams are also sometimes very dumb. They’ll seduce you with lofty promises and end up punching your heart in the stomach. Disappointment stings, but it fucking hurts when you think it’s the death of your One True Plan. When you feel like your life is going off the rails, take a breather and accept that the rails just look different than you thought they would. Maybe they’re not the best rails, but you’re on them ‘till death do you part.

I’m not saying don’t plan or don’t dream big. I’m saying you shouldn’t play fan-fiction with your life. Any idea that you have of who you’ll be in fifteen, ten, or even five years is pure fantasy. My mom, who was born and raised in New York, balked at the idea of living in a rural area when she got married and had kids. She’s lived in Connecticut for over two decades now. She now tells me that she would hate to live in the city. I’m not saying everything happens for a reason. But everything happens, regardless.

Finding out you were wrong about what you wanted hurts a lot. Make it hurt less by accepting reality, cutting your losses, and learning from your mistakes. Hopefully it’ll hurt less the next time.