There is a certain age when people start asking you questions that sound innocent but somehow feel like an examination.
“What are you doing with your life?”..
“What is your plan?”...
“Where do you see yourself in five years?”... And if you don't have a very convincing answer, people look at you like you have missed an important meeting...
Growing up, I thought adults actually had everything figured out...
I thought there was a certain age where everything would suddenly make sense.
You finish school, You get a job, build a career, make money, you know exactly what you want.... Simple... But then I became an adult and I discovered that most people are just very good at looking like they know what they're doing..
Some people genuinely know what they want, and I respect that but there are also many people who are simply moving from one decision to another and hoping the road eventually makes sense..
I have been there... Actually, I am still there in some ways...
My career didn't follow one straight line..
There were things I wanted to become when I was younger, Then life happened...
My interests changed, Circumstances changed. Opportunities appeared in places I wasn't expecting.... Eventually, I found myself doing things I never imagined I would be doing.
Today, I work around business development, commodities trading and web development...
If you had told the younger version of me that this would be my path, I probably would have laughed at you but that's the funny thing about life...
Sometimes you don't discover your path by planning it perfectly..
Sometimes you discover it by taking a wrong turn, learning something, changing direction and trying again and I think society doesn't talk enough about this part...
We celebrate people who seem to have everything figured out at 20 or 25..
The young entrepreneur...
The person who already knows their career.
The person who has bought a house.
The person who seems to have a ten-year plan...
Good for them but their timeline shouldn't become a deadline for everybody else.
Some people find themselves early, Some people find themselves after several failures, Some people change careers at 30, Some start businesses at 40 and Some finally discover what they enjoy after spending years doing something they thought they were supposed to do. .
I don't think that makes their journey less valuable..
If anything, sometimes the uncertainty teaches you more... I have learned that information can tell you what is possible, but experience teaches you what actually works for you.
You can read ten books about business and still discover that running a business is completely different.
You can learn everything about a skill and still need months of practice before you become comfortable with it...
You can have a perfect plan and still have life rearrange everything.
So, do we really have the time to figure everything out?
Yes and no.
Time is moving whether we are ready or not.... That's the scary part.
You can spend five years overthinking what you want to do but you can also spend those five years experimenting, learning and discovering what you don't want...
At least the second option gives you something..
I think the real mistake isn't not having your entire life figured out...
The real mistake is becoming so afraid of making the wrong decision that you refuse to make any decision at all.
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