“Where do you see yourself in five years?”
If you have ever filled out a college application, job application, attended a job fair or an interview, I’m sure you’ve heard this question. So, what is your answer? Maybe, it’s “attending graduate school”, or “buying my first home and starting a family,” or perhaps “traveling the world.” You may be confident in your answer, and in five years time, you may be exactly where you thought you would end up, or you may be nowhere near where you had planned to be.
I, for one, have never been confident of my answer. Born with an indecisive mind and a knack for uncertainty, I’ve never been quite sure of my life course. I've changed my major three times in a total of two years. As you can imagine, attempting to envision my life five years from now induces a slight panic attack. For years, I’ve felt that my uncertainty of the future was unnatural. After all, guidance counselors and employers ask for your five-year plan so often and so casually, that it as if everyone should be sure of their futures. While my case may be unnatural and uncommon, those of us who are confident of our answers may be surprised at our situations by the time five years have passed.
John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” Although it may be a bit cliché, it’s true. You could plan your entire life, right now, if you wanted to. You could fill your calendar to the brim with dates and times and appointments and interviews and graduations. You could decide, right now, whom you will marry, where you will live, and where you will be working. You could begin working to make these plans happen. The problem is, life has a spontaneous way of surprising us with the least expected. You can’t plan to meet someone you’ve never met before. You can’t always plan for failure or success or a change of mind. You can’t plan for death or disaster. And you most definitely can’t plan for discovery. My point is, even if you are confident in your plans for the next five years, the odds are stacked against you, my friend. Sometimes, things simply happen, whether they are planned for or not. While you can envision where you will be in the next five years, you cannot be absolutely certain of your exact future.
You can still work towards your goals and cultivate your passions, even if you can’t foresee the inevitable uncertainties of life. It’s wonderful to have things in your future worth working towards and accomplishing. My point is simply not to get so caught up in your plans that you forget to live. When change comes your way, embrace it and adjust accordingly. When new opportunities arise, take them, even if they're not part of the plan. You may find that in the end of five years, you are in a far better place than you could have ever imagined.
So, the next time someone asks you, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” don’t stress it. If you don’t know the answer, it's perfectly alright, because no one truly does. Answer confidently, anyway. Tell them that you envision yourself as an astronaut or a physicist or a journalist or a doctor. Tell them you envision having five children or one child or no children at all. Tell them you envision yourself being married to the love of your life or being single and rooming with your best friends. Tell them you envision yourself happy, healthy, and successful. Tell them your plans with passion, but keep in mind that this future you have designed for yourself is not set in stone. The world is filled with endless possibilities. The best we can do is make flexible plans and bend accordingly to the workings of the universe.
