It’s very easy and natural to stress about the future.

Where are you going to be five years from now?

Will you have the career you’ve been wanting for all these years, or will you be doing something completely different that you would have never thought of prior?

Will you be single, in a relationship, or even married?

Where will you live?

How much money will you have?

Every outcome and possibility to each of these questions are equally likely. We have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen in the future, or even on a day to day basis. Absolutely anything could happen any day, and your entire life could change at any given moment. While this seems a bit scary, it actually puts me at ease.

It’s comforting for me to remind myself of these things because it really puts into perspective that trying to plan every detail of your life is utterly useless. Throughout my childhood and early teen years, I would spend so much time trying to plan out my life. Of course, the plan never stayed the same. In fact, it changed very often. This just goes to show that even if you think you have it all planned out now, it is likely that it won’t actually go the way that you think it will.

For instance, you could have this idea of the exact career you want to pursue, which is a good thing going into college. However, what if you find out that you absolutely hate it? Something as simple as a major change will then throw off your entire life plan. Which is why it’s better to just take things day by day. Obviously it’s good to have a basic idea as to what kind of direction you want to go in, but at the same time, let everything come to you naturally. At the end of the day, as much as we think we are, we’re not in control of what happens to us.

The best thing to do during your process of figuring your life out is to not compare yourself and your progress to that of other people. There is no time limit on the things you do in life, though many people act as if there is. Some things may take you a lot longer than somebody else, but that’s just part of the natural progression.

If everyone’s life was meant to be the same then they would be, but obviously they are not. At 25, some people are married with kids living in their own house and have a full time career. Others at 25 may still be a single student trying to earn enough money to provide for themselves. While it’s easy to compare the two and label the first option as more successful, it’s simply not true. The single student with a part time job could be studying to be a doctor and end up being more successful than the person who’s already created their life. Or, they could not. It’s all just part of the natural progression that is life.

When you learn to let life come to you instead of trying to chase it yourself, you’ll find that it’s very relaxing to surrender your stress to the fact that whatever is meant to happen will.