I’m supposed to be a writer. It’s what I decided to do long ago, during the dark and forgotten middle school years. Writing is magic. It’s wonder and excitement and adventure. But honest to God, I don’t remember the last time I wrote something for myself. There are these weekly articles and various school papers, but nothing original. Nothing for fun. Nothing for myself.

It’s a struggle to sit in a creative writing class as an English major and think, Did I choose the wrong thing? Everyone has changed their major at least once. Most have changed it two or three or four times. You can be two classes from graduation and still have no clue what the heck you’re doing. And that’s OK

We have this idea in our world that you need to figure out every detail of your life by the time you’re 18, 20, 22. There’s so much pressure to have the perfect plan with the perfect outcome. Endless questions of “What do you plan to do after graduation?” are thrown your way by people who don’t even remember their college days. But fun secret: no one know what they’re doing.

Not a single person feels like they know exactly where they’re going in life. People feel pressured to follow paths they don’t want to go down. Life is terrifying, and it’s impossible to make a plan that will work forever. So don’t bother with one. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t continue to focus on school. Or that you shouldn’t listen to people when they try to give you advice. But at the end of the day, you need to focus on yourself.

Everyone jokes that you can’t get a job as an English major, so you better love the major itself, and it’s true. You need to love what you study. Whether it’s writing, or marketing, or biology. You don’t have to make it your major, or you can enter that field if you want. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re confident in your choice, regardless of others' opinions about it. You’re the one who’s going to have to live with the decision.

I wish I had more time for hobbies. I wish I knew how to paint, or garden, or play the piano. My goal is to start focusing more on discovering new things so I that when I do write, I feel happy instead of burnt out. So coming from one quarter-life-crisis to another, don’t worry about making the wrong decision. You won’t.

Go out into the world. Take some time and just work somewhere that lets you explore your hobbies. Travel if you can afford to. Stay in school and study your ass off.

You don’t have to know exactly what you’re doing because no one knows what they’re doing. Just don’t be afraid to change your mind. You’re doing just fine.