By Wil Story
Guest Writer
I have looked forward to this moment for the past three years, waiting with nervous anticipation to tell people I am a senior in college. On one hand, I feel special and have almost a sense of ownership over what happens on this campus.
However, the other part of me recognizes that I am one tiny face at Union, and I am about to get even smaller in the real world. My heart is a strange limbo of wanting to graduate, get a job and begin life in the real world and wanting to nestle into my dorm bed and avoid putting on a cap and gown for another year.
The beginning of senior year of high school, a student is incessantly asked, “Where are you going to college, and what will your major be?” I have now exchanged those questions for ones that include, “Where are you moving after you graduate?” or “How much have you studied for the GRE?”
I have purposely stayed away from those questions. I tell people I do not like having a plan, because I feel inadequate if that plan falls apart.
Part of me is still in denial about being a senior in college. Sometimes I catch myself looking at the time, scared I am not going to get all of my chapel credits in.
The questions people outside of Union ask me about my future represent only a small fraction of the ones I think about.
I worry about where my friends are moving, what job I will find and how I am going to keep up with friends. If I ever find myself sitting around, I begin to focus on all of these questions and I begin to panic, because I do not have any answers.
The only answer I know for sure is that I am a senior with barely a plan, and for me that is OK. Some people, such as my parents, are worried anytime we have a conversation about life, because they know I do not have the next three years of my life planned out.
Over the summer and at the beginning of this semester I realized I do not have an answer to any of the questions I am asked. I have come to learn that I cannot ever plan for the right answer, but I will know it is the right answer when it happens.
You may be reading this and thinking I am the worst example of a senior. I have an inkling of a plan, and I do not really seem to be that concerned about it.
It seems like I am just taking life as it goes, sitting in my dorm room waiting for something to happen. Some of you may scoff at the fact that I have barely any plan together and the idea that my plan can change at any moment.
Know that this is not me trying to avoid making a plan altogether. However, this is me realizing it is much more important to take every day as it comes and not worry about trying to concretely plan my life.
Think about it. When people plan something and it falls through, what is their usual reaction? They get mad, sad or frustrated. I do not want to plan out my life just to watch none of my plan come to fruition.
People want to graduate with a job already in hand or have a serious relationship or fiancé by the time they graduate. When none of it happens, what do they have? They have a desired future that has not happened, and that is when a sense of failure begins to set in.
I think, selfishly, that is the reason I have not planned out many things in my life: the fear of failing.
My one piece of advice to anyone is to not fear if every step of your future is not planned. Taking things day by day has been one of the best decisions I have made in college. It has freed me from the stipulations that people put on themselves and the sense of failure a person feels if he does not succeed in all of his plans.
Make sure to stop and relax, smell the roses and stop worrying that you do not have a definite plan. You will probably end up appreciating the feeling of freedom before life in the real world settles in.
