“What in the world am I even doing?”
This question has been rattling around my brain for years, and seems to just be growing louder and louder. From the moment we’re old enough to comprehend what a future is, we’re asked “what do you want to be when you grow up?” When you’re a kid, that question feels light and fun; the options are endless. You say, “astronaut, dancer, singer, actor, doctor, teacher,” and the answer might change every time someone asks. And then you get to high school, and suddenly it’s time to apply to colleges and you’re barely 18, and there’s this looming pressure to make a decision that seemingly may define the rest of your life. And maybe you get into college and choose a major and then you realize you really, really hate it and you have no idea what you actually want to do, and that question doesn’t seem so fun and light anymore.
I switched my major after finishing my first year and a half of college. I was convinced that if I studied something else, and worked for a different degree, I would have my “eureka!” moment, and suddenly everything would make sense and I’d know exactly what I wanted to do. I took a semester off my sophomore spring semester and, while I stand by it being one of the best decisions I’ve made, and I am exponentially happier studying what I am now, I still find myself feeling incredibly lost, staring in panic at the future like a kid whose parent left them in the grocery checkout line to, “grab just one thing, really quickly,” and the line is moving a little too fast for comfort.
There seems to be a societal expectation that we have a plan (with a capital P) of what comes next. Are you going to go to grad school, law school, med school? What career, what company, what is life going to look like as soon as you graduate? And there are many people who do have a plan, and have had a clear path they’ve been aiming for for years (if that’s you, what sorcery is this and can we share with the class?). Sometimes, I try to think forward, to make a plan for the next few years, thinking about the looming threat of graduation, and it takes everything in me to stop myself from yelling, “I just want to make it through tomorrow!”
There was a point where I thought I would have to take an extra semester to graduate. Let me tell you, it felt like the whole world was going to end at just the thought of those few extra months. The idea of “falling behind” my friends, and straying from the timeline I had set in my mind sent me into an epic spiral. The panic I felt made it impossible to put together an actual graduation plan. In a moment of what I can only call sheer insanity, I contemplated taking a 21 to 22 credit semester while working two jobs so I could be done in the spring, knowing that this would have some major consequences on my sanity. I was only able to put together a clear, and significantly more reasonable, graduation plan to be done on my own time when I took a step back and accepted that it was entirely okay if I needed the extra time.
And you know what? Even with that, I think it would be fair to say that I still don’t have a clue what I’m doing. And that’s okay. As much as it may feel like you’re behind, or there’s something you’re missing, the truth of the matter is there is no timeline. It took me so long to realize and accept that — and I’d be a liar if I said I always listen to my own advice — but I think it’s important to remember that everyone is just making things up as they go. You’re doing life for the first time, and so is everyone else (even the people who seem to have their sh*t together!).
I don’t know what I’m eating for dinner tonight, much less where I’ll be in a year. I do know that I’m going to make coffee when I get home and I’m going to see a movie on Tuesday. And while those things don’t feel like a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, sometimes, the little things that you have control over can feel like the most important thing in the world. Yes, having a tentative plan for where things are headed is important. No, that plan is never set in stone.
If you only get one thing out of this, let it be that you can do things on your own timeline. At the end of the day, you’re the one who has to live with the decisions you make. Take all the time in the world to make a decision, take a semester off—take a whole year or three—change your plan every day if that’s what you need. Find the kid that used to answer the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?” with so much conviction every time their answer changed. I think they may have had the right idea. Trust that someday something will click, and you’ll know that you’ve made the right choice for you, because, truly, that is the only thing that matters.