When I was a kid, I thought that 20 seemed so old and so "adulty." It seemed like all 20-year-olds had everything figured out and knew exactly where their life was going. I couldn't wait to get there. Well, here I am, 20 years old and I realize just how wrong I was.
Graduating high school, I had my life completely planned out. I called it my "10-year plan." I was going to college as a political science and public relations double major to become a campaign manager and I would move to Washington, D.C. after graduation, get married, and start my political career. Two years later, I'm an education major, single, and nothing about my life is what my high school self had imagined.
It's pretty common to experience this complete turn around at some point. Some call it the "sophomore slump," while others just call it being a 20-year-old. But I'm here to tell you that we're not in this alone. We'll get through this and someday, we'll be able to say that everything fell into place. Maybe not the way we planned, but maybe better.
For example, let's take a look at Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl. She didn't get accepted into her dream school, dropped out of NYU, became a princess and left her throne all before the age 25. Eventually, she started fashion designing for her mother's company, married Chuck Bass, and got everything she dreamed of, but this all took time. At 20, she was struggling just like us.
But she's not the only one. At age 20, J.K. Rowling hadn't even come up with the idea of Harry Potter yet, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, was flipping burgers at McDonald's, and Oprah Winfrey was fired from her news anchor job. These are all extremely successful people who didn't have it all figured out at our age. Their success took years of struggling, changing plans, and taking risks.
Our 20s are meant for making mistakes and learning from them. We still have time to change the way we want our life to turn out. Sure, we might change our major seven times and have breakdowns every day, but that's okay. Sure, all of our friends might be getting married, settling down, and finding "real jobs," but that's okay. We're okay. If you don't like your major, change it. If you don't like the relationship your in, end it. If you don't like something, fix it. The sooner you realize that the "10 year plan" you have in your head might not happen exactly the way you want, the happier you will be. Change your plans and change your mind as many times as you need to. Nothing great happens overnight. It takes time.
