You Are Not Where You Thought You’d Be In Life, And That’s Okay

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Change is the only constant, isn’t that what they always say? The saying is definitely true to life, be it in the best or the worst of ways. We human beings are constantly changing creatures, changing and adapting according to how we grow, to how our worldview changes. So it is no surprise that the you in your head, and the actual you out in the real world, can change drastically as well.

Each of us has goals, goals that bring us closer to the life we think we want to lead, the life we set out to achieve. They are the fundamentals of ourselves, they make up our very being, and they foretell what will become of us. But what if you wake up one day, and think, What the hell am I doing with my life? Why did I even set out to accomplish these goals, when they feel meaningless to me now? When I’m not even sure I like the choices I made, and the path that I’m currently taking? These kinds of questions crop up abruptly, but it is an amalgamation of the little things, the things that come up daily that feel suddenly lopsided, wrong, that make you think like your life is someone else’s.

It’s in the gradual decline of interest in your chosen field of study, it’s in the frantically looking for other things to do, just so you won’t have to do what’s expected of you, it’s in the daydreaming of another life you wish you could lead.

If you feel this way, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Yes, you invested all that time and effort into your current life goal. Yes, you’ve told everyone that matters that this is the path you are certain you want to take. Yes, you’ve had the idea of this path in your head for such a long time that thinking of any other way is, well, inconceivable! But why stay the current path when you’ve realized that something else is for you? When you can be a better version of yourself, when another path you are more passionate about, which may be a completely foreign path, or one that you’ve rejected earlier, is there for the taking?

The trick is to admit the fact that you now want something else, with more fervor than you ever mustered for the previous path.

It’s okay to change course, to reconfigure where you want to go in life.

That, in itself, already takes a healthy amount of strength and courage. Once you’ve admitted to yourself that you want something else, and that you are willing to start over, take a step back, recalibrate your goals, reorient yourself. Make certain that this change is what you presently need, and what can help you become the best version of yourself.

Starting over is hard, but it is worth all the blood, sweat, and tears that will go into it, especially once you’ve reached all your goals, and can be happy and content with where you are in life. This doesn’t mean that the growing stops there though, it only signifies that you’ve leveled up, and there are still new challenges to overcome, and new points of view to understand.

After all, we are all perpetual works in progress, always changing, growing, adapting.

We are dynamic beings who have the privilege of existing at this very moment. So if you feel that some other path is just waiting to be discovered, go ahead and explore! You never know where it might take you.