Do you ever ask yourself, "Alright, when am I supposed to finally figure it all out and my life will actually make sense?" Me? I wonder about the answer to this question Every. Single. Day. When I was a little kid, I thought my life would be set in stone once I got to college. Well, here I am, and life still is a "mess."
Let me clarify the word mess. By mess, I mean that no matter how put together I become, life throws something new at me. No matter how much I get ahead in my school work, something else always comes up. Just when I am finally standing firmly on two feet, I get knocked back down - and no, it's not only because I am clumsy.
The other day (and the reason I am writing this article) was one of the toughest days in my collegiate career. We are only two weeks into the semester... And that day I kept questioning my resolve to finish this degree. There was a point where I had to pull my car over and pull out my voice memo app on my phone and just vent. And I want to share a few of the light bulbs that went off in my head. Here's a little bit of my blurb:
I just want to talk about something that's been on my mind for quite some time. I want to talk about reaching that point in your life where you're... good, you've made it, you know. That level that everyone is striving for. Everyone wants to be well off and have their life together. But now that I think about it, I always thought that day would come when I turned 18 or 21 or one of those pinnacle ages, where I would know what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. But uh... no. I'm going on 22 now and I most certainly do not have it all figured out. I have an idea of what who and what I want to be but life is still constantly a state of change for me. I'm having all these new experiences. So I grew up a little more and thought 30 was the new golden age...but I have friends who are thirty and they are still trying to figure it out and I learned that's okay. So then 50 became the new goal time to figuring out life, when it would all magically make sense... but then I just got off the phone with my dad and he just told me about all the life changes he is going through and now I'm just left here like... well when is this supposed to happen?
Here's the answer, friends: it doesn't exist.
There is no set time where you just figure it all out. In fact, the longer you go through life, the more experiences you'll have, the more life lessons you'll learn, the more you will change inevitably. And you have to learn to be okay with that. You are in charge of how happy you become, how positive you remain, and how successful you want to be. No one else is in charge of that. So stop looking for the right answers because there are none and you wouldn't find them where you've been looking, anyway. Learn to be uncomfortable. Then you know you're growing. Someone once told me that I'm "in training," and I totally believe it. Don't be afraid of the unknown, be afraid of figuring it all out now, because life would be boring for the rest of your days if you knew what would happen.
