Why It’s Okay To Not Have Everything Figured Out

Why It’s Okay To Not Have Everything Figured Out

A reminder to my past, present, and future self:

Sometimes life hits us with situations that we have no control over. We start questioning our purpose in life and everything we’ve been working towards and the point of it all. Sometimes we meet a crossroad and are faced with a difficult decision to make. Other times we’re thrust in a place in life where we have no idea what we’re doing, or why we’re doing it in the first place. And we starts getting anxious. Anxious that the decisions we took may be wrong. That maybe, just maybe, our whole life is over. That we’ll never get where we really want to be.

We human are obsessed with having everything under control. We also fear the unknown. The moment something goes wrong with our plan, we start panicking. When our life doesn’t progress how we’re all programmed to believe it should, we start thinking that we’re failing life. We think that the right way to live is to graduate from a good college, have a good career, find love, and have a happy family, exactly in that order, right?

Wrong.

Not every single person in this world is meant to live the exact same life at the exact same pace. That’s what makes us unique. Also life doesn’t always go in our favor. Our careers might be doing great, but we’re having a hard time maintaining our relationships with people. On the other hand, we might have met a dead end career wise, but looked around only to find so many people by our side supporting us till the end. We don’t always have to have every aspect of life figured out. We might be doing great in some but not so great in others. And that’s totally okay. We’re supposed to enjoy life as it is.

We need to understand that we will never have life “figured out”. We have no idea what’s going to happen in the future and what life will throw at us. Our lives could change in a second. We don’t have control over what happens to us. However, we can control how we react to it. We can either sit and cry about it, or we can rise and push through and believe that whatever is happening to us right now is part of bigger reason. A lot of times we also have no idea how any of what is happening to us could be a good thing. We don’t see how this horrible thing could benefit us in the future. Maybe you got fired, or kicked out of college, or worked hard for a high score but never got it, or got a divorce. All we think about in these moments is how our life is crumbling down with no way out. And our brain just can’t imagine how God could take these horrible things and turn them into something wonderful. And it won’t make sense. None of it will. Not until years later, when we’ve finally made it, and we look back and realize that if this thing hadn’t happened to us, we wouldn’t be standing here. The job you got fired from may have been standing between you and your dream job. Maybe the college you got kicked out from only wasted your time that you could’ve spent working on something greater. Maybe you got divorced only to marry someone that actually cared about you more than anyone else ever could. You’ll never know. Not until later on. You’ll look back and realize how far you’ve made it. How all the suffering only made you stronger. How all the confusion cleared, and now you understand why you went through all this.

Right now you might be lost. And scared. And maybe you don’t know what to do with your life or how to continue from here on. You might doubt all the decisions you’re making, and question what’s right and what’s wrong. But I ask you this: just have faith. Have faith in God and in yourself that you can make great things. Believe in yourself and have courage. You might not have things figured out, and you may think that you’re falling behind, but just believe that whatever you go through is part of a bigger thing that God has intended for you. You’ll get there eventually, and it will all make sense.