Last year, I came home for Thanksgiving break during my very first semester of college. This was my first time returning home since leaving for my freshman year back in August of 2014. Being the oldest child in my family, I was ecstatic to be back and essentially rub it in everyone’s face about how awesome my new lifestyle as a college student was. I know it sounds a bit arrogant, but I had been experiencing new surroundings, meeting new people, and taking on new challenges that I just couldn’t wait to brag about. So when Thanksgiving Day finally came around, that’s exactly what I did as I sat at a giant dining room table with pretty much every relative you could possibly think of. Everything seemed to be going fine until my uncle had asked my brother, who was only in his junior year of high school, what he planned to do once he was in college.
Within just a few short seconds, my brother shot out an in-depth and highly sophisticated answer that completely stole the spotlight off of me, putting it directly onto him. “I know I want to be a hematologist oncologist and if that fails, I would love to do radiology,” said my brother. The conversation then totally switched gears in which my entire family started speaking about how challenging the medical field was, but how proud they were of my brother for his aspiring dreams. This is when my bragging stopped.
How could I compete with that? How could my brother, who wasn’t even in college yet, already know exactly what he wanted to do with his life when I couldn’t even figure out what I wanted to have for breakfast the next morning? At this point in my college career I had an idea as to what I wanted to major in, but still wasn’t 100 percent confident about pursuing a job within that field once I graduated. Of course, my family supports me just as equally as my brother, but I couldn’t help feeling like I had messed up. I began to think that I was failing at college life simply because I wasn’t fully sure that I knew what I wanted to gain out of it.
Flash forward to today. It’s now 2015 and I’m going through my sophomore year still not knowing what I want to do with my life after college; and guess what? That’s completely okay, because not having a plan is actually the best plan.
Have you ever woken up one morning feeling so eager to get things accomplished, yet not even knowing where to start? Have you ever told yourself that today was going to be the day you’d get your life together, but nothing ended up getting solved? All of this is normal and is nothing to get discouraged about. Often times we put too much pressure on ourselves by expecting so much from our own capabilities. However, it’s important to realize that stressing about the future will only limit your present. College is a time of discovery, a place in which we can learn new things not only about the world but also about ourselves. It’s a time for us to be curious and to explore our options.
We are young, and not expected to have it all figured out yet. It’s important to see where life takes us, because if we all knew exactly where we were headed in the future then what fun would that be? So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. Trust that in time, everything will fall into place.
