When many of us got to college, we came prepared with a plan. As the years have gone by, those plans have changed again and again. Now, before we get ready to graduate, and start looking for apartments and new favorite delivery restaurants, many of us must make a decision, and it is definitely not a fun one. My boyfriend and I have been together since the beginning of my Sophomore year of college. We have planned day trips, movie nights and vacations, however, for some reason, we never thought to plan out what would happen once I graduated.
Here is the issue;
In college, you develop relationships and those relationships are special and important. Your senior year, however, you start to realize that your plans don’t always line up with those whom you love.
So… You have a few options but each one is worse than the other.
You can decide that you want to do your own thing (and it is okay if you’re selfish because your first priority should be being the best you!). This doesn’t necessarily mean that you and your SO have to break up, but you want to do what you think will make you a better/more successful person.
You can put yourself second. Although each of you has a dream, dreams can change. You might have had a specific plan since you were 13 years old but like we said earlier, plans change and it is okay to accept those changes. Without change, life would be a boring cycle, so maybe it can be something that’ll change for the better!
Lastly, is the one that sounds a lot more ideal than it actually is. Compromise. I don’t know about you but I am terrible when it comes to compromising regarding anything from dinner to Netflix, so I could only imagine having to make these huge decisions such as where I’ll live, where I’ll start my career, etc.. Maybe you both sit down and talk about what is important. Maybe you both won’t accept your dream jobs, but you find a place that both of you love and even considered. Maybe you both have worked out a plan to live somewhere for X amount of years and then somewhere else for Y amount of years. But the hard part is that most likely, both parties won’t get what they exactly want, which can make both parties uneasy.
If you were looking for an exact solution to this situation, I got some bad news for you… it does not exist.
There is no way to know what is best. There is no correct answer. Whatever you choose will have its own pros and cons. Whatever you don’t choose can linger in your mind for a while. The point of this article is to remind you that your first priority should always be bettering yourself. That can do anything from accepting your dream job to supporting someone you love to finding and creating a new plan. But at the end of the day, look out for yourself and do what genuinely will make you happy. You only have one life, so don’t waste it making others happy.