Plans Do Not Always Go As Planned

Growing up, I was one of those kids who always made lists for everything she did – games at sleepovers, ideas for the weekends, food to have, etc. This piece of my character followed me through elementary school as I made lists for birthday parties, through junior high as I made lists for future careers, but then it stopped in high school. I realized there was no need for me to figure out what I wanted to do with my life because writing was my passion. It is my passion. It has been my entire life since I picked up a pencil as a child and then it bloomed once I took a writing class in jr. high. Even if everything goes wrong in my day, when I hit my sheets at night and open up a journal or my laptop and form strings of words, metaphors, or even simple phrases, then every bad aspect of that day disappears – they do not even matter.

Even so, my mind is more confused than ever. I do not have a plan, I do not want to be a journalist, and I most certainly do not want to settle for anything less than what I deserve. I mean, what is the point of a career if you do not enjoy it? Is building life on the foundation of happiness not in the cards for me? Journalism has always been my plan. Sometimes, I wish an owl would just swoop down in front of my face with a letter tied to his ankle with the career I should pursue in a little scrawled-out script. Then, BAM! I'd have my life planned out again.

Although, maybe this is what needs to happen. I had my entire future planned out, but then I lost sight of what else I enjoyed. Throughout high school, I shouted out to the entire world I wanted to be the next travel writer for National Geographic or the next feature writer for Cosmopolitan. I never actually sat down and realized my problem: I hate interviewing people. Do you know what else I hate? Prying into other people's personal lives. What do journalists do? Well, they interview and pry, of course!

I believe this moment is a moment that changes a lot of people my age. We get into college with a firm plan of what we want to do for the rest of our lives, but then we realize we really do not want that. We just realize it is the safest route since it has always been the plan, and it has always been something we believed would make us the happiest.