Since I was a little girl, my family planned out most of my life: where I was going to go to college and what career I was going to have. But when I got a little bit older, I started to think for myself. I was going to graduate high school with honors, go to college in California or New York, travel the world, get married and have kids all by the young age of twenty-five. But man, oh man, was I wrong. Here I am, nineteen years old going to a university only an hour away from home, yet to travel anywhere remotely interesting and getting married and having kids is the last thing on my mind. If there's anything I learned in life, it's that plans do not go as planned. And that's okay.
When people ask me the question, "Where do you see yourself in five years?", I tell them I have no idea. I don't know where I'll be in five years because I don't even know where I'll be in the next five hours. Will I be working or studying at the library or taking a nap at my apartment? The most likely answer is taking a nap, but that's not the point.
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I used to be this girl who had every second of every minute of everyday written down in my planner. I even wrote down when I was going to have lunch, and if it wasn't written down for that day, I didn't eat. Oh, and when something went unplanned, it was complete chaos. One day, I learned that a little chaos is okay because we learn from it and even end up loving it.
You got a "C" on that history exam? Now, you know what to study and how to study for it.
You didn't do your laundry today? There are other days.
You and your best friend got into a fight? We're adults, and we'll figure it out.
There are some things in our lives that go beyond our control, so it's fine if we don't have our day planned out. Because we have the rest of our lives to do that. A little bit of mayhem goes a long way, so relax and enjoy the ride. But don't get too relaxed. We still have to pass those finals.
