For a good chunk of our lives, we're pressured to have everything figured out. You go to high school, you graduate, you get into a good college, attend for four years, graduate, get a degree, get a job, work until you die. That's the golden plan that is considered socially acceptable, and we're taught that anything that deviates from that is "not traditional" and feels like a failure.

It's not.

Life isn't just a straight shot on the Interstate from Point A to Point B with guaranteed happiness. It's an annoying game of Chutes and Ladders, with a dash of getting blasted by the blue shell in Mario Kart right before the finish line.

The only people who believe it is the Interstate are people from older generations who went straight from school to work, because they had to. Now, we don't have to. There are a billion ways for life to drag us along, whether that's going from high school straight to work, going to university, going to community college, or even getting paid to make YouTube videos. And they're all valid.

Despite their validity, the stigma of doing anything "different" still surrounds us today. Young people are put under tremendous stress to endure things that may not be for them, like college, for fear of being seen as less than, lazy, or stupid. We see millions of other people our age doing it, so why can't we? Why is it so hard for us to get out of bed and just go to class?

It's okay to not have your life planned out. It's okay to go to college. it's okay to not go to college. It's okay to go straight into the work force. It's okay to do whatever is best for you, whatever makes you happy, whatever you believe is the life path that will get you where you need to be. The only person that you need to have happy with the decisions you're making is yourself, because you're who has to live with you for the rest of your life.

Anyone that says they have life figured out is lying. You're already under an immense amount of pressure to "not screw everything up," but it's impossible to screw up your life. You just become faced with new obstacles and opportunities to make it everything you've ever wanted. Sometimes what you originally had planned ends up not being what is best for you. And that's okay. You don't have to have your life planned out and everything set in stone at age 15, age 18, age 21, or even age 50. It's impossible to plan something that is ever-changing and unpredictable.

You're not a failure no matter what your plan, or lack thereof, for your life is. Sometimes you just need to hear that.