When will people stop asking dreaded questions like,?
"What do you plan to do with your life?"
"What are your 5 year plans beta? or my personal favorite, "When do you plan on getting married?".?
What is this cringe causing pre-occupation that people have with plans? If tomorrow one of us stood up and replied, "you know what I plan to do with my life? just live."? the person on the other side might just have a heart attack. Because people without plans are considered to be wasting away their lives. But screw that. We don't always need a plan. Sometimes we just need to breathe, let go and see what happens.?
Image credit: Pexels.?
We all have grown up witnessing our parents and grandparents struggle to 'have it all'.?They were acing perfection, their loyalty was with one company for their entire life, they worked even when they gained no pleasure out of it. All so they could get the perfect house, the perfect partner, perfect children. But did any of us lead perfect lives? No. Because a perfect life doesn't exist.?
And it is because of this attitude that most of us have misunderstood what it means to live, especially in our adulthood.?
Image credit: Pexels.?
There is a fundamental problem with what we as young people have been to do with our lives. In our twenties, we were just told about how by focusing only one our careers, working insane amounts of hours, saving money, spending wisely and just doing it all will give our life meaning. Everything else - love, family, a home would naturally fall into place eventually.?
After working like complete maniacs, depriving ourselves of the sweetest and simple pleasures in life, we enter our thirties and if you planned for a great career but failed to get married or procreate, you are still branded as not good enough. Because you didn't plan well.?
Image credit: Pexels.
And in recent years there are so many examples I can cite where I have only witnessed unhappiness among people who planned the future too hard. There are friends who are completely burned out at 30 because they devoted themselves to just their job. There are those who moved cities in the pursuit of a career that they would eventually hate.?
There are friends who quit their careers to have kids and get married and hated it. There are those who with great careers are wondering why they didn't date harder because they are lonely and miserable.?
Image credit: Pexels.
All the places you don't want to be. We all are fulfilling expectations of what society wants us to be. But we can't be fitted into cut-out molds of what adults are supposed to be and how to plan to get there. Instead, focus on creating something. Have goals and sometimes it's okay to deviate from them. It's fine to catch a flight somewhere to get away from all the madness that surrounds you. Just stop planning and start living because, in the end, no one will remember the nights you slept well in your perfect house but those experiences that lifted your spirit.?