"You need to have a plan!" "You have to plan ahead or things won't work out." "If things don't pan out exactly as you plan, you won't be successful." Do some of these phrases sound familiar, especially to recent graduates? Whether it be from a parent, professor, mentor, or even a friend, we find ourselves always being pressured by others to plan out our entire lives in order for things to turn out the best way possible. In society, it is ingrained in so many minds that you need to know everything right now if you want to succeed in life. But how do they know that? Can they tell the future? Does planning everything out have a 100% success rate (if you could even measure that)? No one knows but the Man upstairs, so it's not the best choice to try and convince someone to follow footsteps that may have worked for you because things don't work out the same for everybody. What may work for someone else may not work for others. It's good to have an idea at least of what you want to do, or something you are either really passionate about or enjoy, so that you can steer yourself in the right direction to be successful. So what are we to do to prepare for the future?
The truth is that there is no foolproof way to having a successful future. Success is something that we measure ourselves. It doesn't always have to mean living the "American Dream" with a house in the Hamptons and a six-figure salary. That is the mindset society has created in so many minds. The great thing about our generation coming up is that we aren't so concerned with salaries and having jobs just for the money. We are working to have jobs we love and enjoy, and still pay us enough to still live comfortably. The thing about success is that its definition is on a case by case basis. Success for one person is different than what it means for another individual. The important thing to keep in mind is to not let others dictate for you what it means to be successful. Success could mean doing something you love for free! And that's perfectly fine.
Now, in regards to the plans that people try to push you to have, I think Jay-Z said it best when he said, "Let me be great!" It is your life. Not anyone else's. Now, it's true that having a plan could prove to be beneficial in terms of having in mind what you would like to be doing in the future, and having some direction for yourself. However, don't feel discouraged just because you don't have one. I can think of plenty of chance events that have opened doors for me, and none of them were planned. I say that to emphasize my point that you shouldn't limit yourself to a plan you write on paper. Nothing always goes according to plan, and anything that can go wrong, will (Murphy's Law). In life, you live and you learn, and you grow as a result. Trust in yourself and your abilities, and you can achieve your level of success. To those who do have plans, it's not the end of the world if things don't work out exactly as you thought they would. Sometimes things aren't meant to happen. I am a firm believer in things always happening for a reason. So if your plan doesn't happen verbatim, maybe it's for good reason. Maybe something even better is in store for you. I can't say this will happen for sure but I can say that anything is possible, and that there will always be opportunities to take yourself to the places in life you want to be. I may not be a college graduate yet, but I have talked with individuals who are and read stories about people whose lives didn't go according to plan, but they all still reached a level of success that made them happy.
Overall, even though this doesn't seem like that much input on the matter, it's still meaningful knowledge. It's not as much because the point is simple: Do what makes you happy and take the right steps to get there. That means don't let people dictate your lives and how you should go about things, don't lower your ambition and drive just because things aren't going the way you like, and take the time to find what you enjoy. You don't want to be stuck doing something the rest of your life that takes a piece of your soul each day just because someone told you it's what's best for you or because you think it's what you have to do to be successful in other people's eyes. Take control of your life and start thinking about what will bring you success in your own eyes. Then, take the steps to make it happen.
"The world is yours." - Nas
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