No Game Plans Here
I had started writing this particular post back in January. I had originally planned for this to be somewhat of a reflection piece. As my birthday approaches (next week!), I’ve decided that instead of going through a formal reflection of the past year that I would write about something that caught my attention as a way to move forward into my 28th year of life. I am a big fan of Morgan Harper Nichols. For those of you that may not know who MHN is, she’s an absolutely fantastic and beautiful writer. Her writing is validating, inspiring, strong, encouraging. I mean I could go on forever about how well this woman creates beauty with her words. I stumbled across one of her posts that included two important quotes that really resonated with me:
“It does not make you any less of an adult if you do not have a game plan for every single thing.”
“It does not make you irresponsible if everything is not planned out in your life.”
Wow. When I read those quotes, they both hit me like a ton of bricks. I’ve talked about this briefly before how society puts so much pressure on us to “follow the steps” and have every little detail in your life planned out. As I continue to grow, it becomes more and more important to focus on what brings me happiness. I am more than guilty of getting stuck in society’s boxes - engagement, house-buying, marriage, kids, etc. Please do not get me wrong, those are all beautiful life changing moments that absolutely SHOULD be celebrated, and someday, I hope to celebrate them in my own life. The point I am trying to make is that there is so much pressure around having life all figured out and “following the steps”. Truth be told, everyone’s “steps” are completely different. If the past two years have taught all of us anything, it’s that life does not need to have a plan.
You are no less of an adult if you do not have a game plan. You are not irresponsible if your entire life is not planned out. I’m going to be honest with you all…I genuinely have little to no game plan for my life right now. I don’t know if I want to be married. I don’t know if I want to buy a house. I don’t know how much money I eventually want to make. I don’t know if I want to have my own private practice or if I want to work for an agency. I genuinely just do not know. Some people will read this and think, “Well, that’s a little irresponsible not to know any of those things”, and maybe they are right, maybe it is irresponsible in their eyes. That’s perfectly fine. In my eyes, I have time. I think there’s a lot of pressure on having certain things accomplished by a certain age. My parents married in their early twenties, and my mother had me at 27. What I love about my parents is that they each encourage me to follow my own timeline. I don’t know about any of you, but if paying my own bills, working full time while continuing my education towards a higher goal, and improving my health (physical and mental) doesn’t classify me as an adult, then by all means, call me whatever floats your boat. I think that it’s these things, however simple or orderly they may seem, that need to be celebrated more. You woke up and tackled your day? You go sister. You paid off a loan? More power to you friend! You left an abusive relationship after trying to figure out what to do for years? Absolutely incredible my love.
As I go forth into this next year of life, I am focusing on continuous self-improvement and happiness rather than creating an unattainable timeline. By no means does any of this mean that I do not have life goals for myself. I absolutely have goals that I eventually would like to accomplish, but I want to accomplish them on my time vs. when society pressures us to accomplish these items. I have worked incredibly hard for everything in my life, and I do not intend to stop here. Twenty-eight will be a year of extending grace to myself and reminding myself there are no hard timelines. I am not missing out on anything in life. I am no less of an adult if I haven’t followed society’s steps.
Cheers to 28! 🎉