Just the other day I saw a photo that said “Being 18-25 is like playing a video game where you’ve skipped the tutorial and you’re just sort of running around with no idea how anything works.” I laughed so hard the first time I saw that photo, because it really couldn’t be more true. We’ve all just kinda been thrown out into the world left to figure it all out on our own.

You're left to figure out: how long you can keep chicken as a left over before it will make you sick, how long you can go without and oil change in your car, how to do your own taxes, how much cranking up the heat actually cost, how to save money and so on. But you're learning, you're figuring it all out, and that's all that matters, you're not expected to have it all together.

I can't tell you how many times I've said to my friends and sisters, “okay I'm going to go to the library and get my life together today.” Every time I attempt to do this I realize, I'm so far from having it all together it's unreal, but I've learned that's okay.

Life in your late teens and early twenties is all about finding yourself, figuring out who you are, what you want to do, and how you're going to get there. And it's totally okay to not have it all together.

People are so rushed and concerned with getting out of school and getting out into the “real world”, people are so desperate to find that one they love and the one they want to spend forever with, when really you don't even know who you are, and who you're going to be.

Take a step back and look in the mirror, is who you are at this very moment in time who you will be in 3, 5, 10, even 15 years from now? No way, you are continuously changing how can you expect to find the person you want to be with for life right now when you're still figuring yourself out?

Few get that fairy tail, first love happy ending, and for those who do, congratulations. That wasn't me, and honestly: I am glad. I've loved and lost, I've lived and learned, and I couldn't be more thankful for all the ways it changed me and the person it's started to form me into. Because I'm still living and learning.

I have learned that everyone who I associate with now will not move into my future with me, and that is also okay. I'm thankful for those who will, although I am still in the process of figuring out who those people are.

But at 20 you still have so much life ahead of you and so many new people to meet that could impact you and change you in so many ways. At 20 you have barely even begun to start you life and decide where you want to go and who you want to be, and thats totally OK. You have plenty of time to figure it all out, don’t stress it. Take life day by day and eventually everything will fall into place.