Freshman year of college is a big change for most people. For me, it meant I was leaving the only home I had ever lived in, the close-knit community I had grown up in, and I had to get comfortable in an entirely new environment and situation. I was excited and felt ready to begin this new chapter of my life, but when I got to school nothing was how I expected it would be.

Suddenly, the plan for my future that I had spent my entire high school career thinking about wasn’t what I wanted. I was unhappy in my major, and I felt like I had lost my footing. The world is such a big place. There are so many things to do and to see. There are so many people to meet and impress and so many paths that we can take, but how do I know which is the right one? What if I pick the wrong choice?

After a long talk with a professor who saw in me a desire to think bigger and study something that really mattered to me, I switched my major from marketing to history. This shift marked a major change in not only my future career but also in how I think about myself and the world.

At the beginning of my freshman spring semester, I felt excited all over again. I couldn’t wait to begin studying something I actually was passionate about. At first, I was enthralled; I spent my days reading about heroes of the past — how they changed the world and how their legacies have lived on well past their deaths. However, my studies started to make me feel small. The people I read about lead armies to victory, changed laws and granted people new rights, and managed incredible artistic feats that I could only ever dream of. They would be remembered as greats.

And who am I? A soft child from the suburbs of Columbus with nothing to show for himself. I felt aimless, pointless, and unnecessary. The world is so big; so many people have lived before us, so many people are living now, and so many people will live on long after we are gone. Does anything I do really matter? Will my actions have an effect on anything bigger than myself? I didn’t think so. And it crushed me.

As I got deeper into my coursework, I began to notice a recurring theme in many of the historical things I read. Every person who’s made history — every groundbreaker, every revolutionary, and visionary — never thought, “This is going to be history! I will be remembered for this.” They simply did what they believed was right. They made their choice, the right choice.

This changed my thinking. If I spent all my time worrying about doing what I thought was right, it would consume my whole life, and that’s exactly what I was doing. I stopped asking myself, “Is this what I should do?” and started wondering, “How can I make this work?”

In life, we can only plan so much, and even then, the most perfect plan can be completely unraveled by an outside force. People spend too much time making one perfect plan and less time thinking about how they’ll fare if it doesn’t go accordingly. Everyone you’ve ever read about has fallen down many times. They failed, they were rejected and mocked, they were persecuted, they were hunted, and they were ostracized for the things they believed in — and if they had let any of that stop them then, well, we probably never would’ve heard of them.

The world is such a big place.

There are so many people to meet and learn about and so many paths that we can take.

There is no right choice, and the only mistake you can make is thinking that one wrong move can end you.

There is no consistency in the world. It is unpredictable, so we’ve got to roll with the punches.

We’re small; no one will notice if we mess up a few times.

You’ve never read about the inventions that Da Vinci couldn’t get to work or the statues that crumbled before Michelangelo could finish them.

You’ve never read Dr. Seuss’ rejected books or seen all the crumpled notes that Einstein threw away before he perfected his theories of special and general relativity.

All we have for certain is the ability to make the best of any situation and go from there.