By 25, you wanted to be married with three kids. You’ve thought how great having a girl first would be. Hey, if you had it your way, you would have two twin boys a couple years after your first child. You wouldn’t be sleeping in the same bedroom you were when you were thirteen either. Post-secondary would be complete and you would have landed your dream job making a salary you can life off of. You would be climbing the corporate ladder, or maybe you would have started your own business. You would have a benefit plan and a pension. Maybe you would have a dog, travelled more, owned a luxury car or a house with some land surrounding it. But for most, everything you have wanted; hasn’t happened.
Truth be told, you can plan as much as you want. You can set goals and you can accomplish goals but at the end of the day, you don’t have as much control over things as you might think. Working hard, being ambitious and working endlessly to get what you want doesn’t mean you will get what you want. After all, timing is everything. What I’m trying to say is that when we were younger we had an idea of what we wanted our lives to look like by a certain age. You can do all you can to achieve what you want, but somethings just won’t happen in time and a lot of things are out of your reach no matter how realistic you are being. Sure, we can date; move out; go to college; apply for jobs; finance a car; get a mortgage but in reality – you can also not find someone worth your time, you can have fertility problems, you can live with your parents, you can graduate school and not work in your field and someone else can get that dream job you interviewed for.
Yes, I am down with the idea of goal setting. It is important to know what you want. But what I’ve also came to realize is that not achieving your goals by the time you wanted to can sometimes drive you into distress. It’s time to get over it and just keep swimming; go with the flow and be patient. Don’t compare yourself to your peers, your family or to those you follow on Instagram.
Our stories are all different. Remember to be optimistic and to be patient. Trust that everything will fall into place as long as you continue to strive for what you want. Don’t let other people get in the way of what you want.
