Most popular phrase of young adulthood?

“I’m just gonna wing it.”

Many people can attest to the fact that in our late teens and our early twenties, none of us really knew what we were doing. The lucky few had an idea of where they were headed. The elite had an outlined itinerary to get there. Most of us, however, have just been winging it since day one. Oddly enough, you still get life experience this way.

I’m a huge advocate for having a plan, especially in the last couple years of college when professors and family members start breathing down your neck about post-grad life. It’s good to know what you want, and a rough idea of how you might get there. Of course, not everything in life goes to plan, and a huge life lesson lies within learning to take everything as it comes at you, whether you’ve expected it or not.

Not everyone has a plan. Some people have a rough plan. Some people have carefully detailed plans that are prone to implosion, should they vary from the chosen path in any way. The thing to remember is that almost nothing will go how you expect it to. But that’s a really good thing about life and growing up into adulthood. If you expected everything you were about to experience, where would the fun be? The passion? The drive to seek out something new?

It’s not that I’m saying you shouldn’t have a plan. I’m saying that you should be open to its evolution. It’s inevitable, but it’s great. If life were a highway (and suddenly I have the Rascal Flatts song stuck in my head…and now you probably do too), sometimes you get off on an exit you weren’t supposed to. Your plan has been completely obliterated, Google Maps is desperately trying to reroute with no LTE service, and you have absolutely no idea where you are. But when you relax enough to let go of the brakes and look around, you realize that sometimes our wrong turns can make for the best journeys.