Oh La, We've got a lot to learn from each other we have got to stick together

It's funny, we make all these elaborate plans for our lives, and spend thousands of dollars attending colleges that promise to make our dreams reality.  We sacrifice for our career, and later sacrifice for love, all in the name of our future.  As we struggle to control our destiny, and grasp more and more at these picture perfect plans, and mold our present so that it will form into our future, we wind up reaching the future wanting entirely different things. It is this never ending "future self" that we work so hard towards, but what we forget to take into account is that on the journey to our "future self," who we are is picking up new pieces to our identity.  You cannot plan who future "you" is going to be, when every moment leading to that future destination is a new moment of discovery, and you are not the same person you were a moment ago.

It's eye opening, while searching for and applying to colleges I thought I needed that top 10 Princeton review, the college that promised success.  If I was going to be big, I had to go to a big place.  Ordinary was never in the cards for me, I had to shoot for excellence.  Now being at college I found that excellent is nice, but not when I am paying for the nametag.  In ten years it won't matter what the name of the college was, but what I did there, and how I grew.  You see, I confused these things.  The name of the college, or where it is, does not make or break your future.  It is YOU who opens up the opportunities that you desire for yourself.  You create your life.  

It's ironic, many of the people I know who are about to graduate, or have long since graduated, had that elaborate plan, but where they thought they were going to be five or ten years ago is not where they are now.  You can start out wanting to be the big animator in Hollywood, but find just as you are about to graduate, that the four years you spent devoting your life to this field is not what you want at all, you'd rather just plan parties and bake.  Or you could stay local, but yearn for the big city, later settle for being a teacher when your New York City dreams fall short, then find love, contemplate sacrificing your happiness and career for your husband, find out your husband is a cheating, sex-addicted bag of scum, and wind up where you always belonged, doing what you've always loved.  Funny isn't it?  How regardless of our plans, life will go how it is supposed to.

It seems sometimes all of these plans just clog up the works.  The more we plan, the more we find ourselves deviating from the plan.  What is the sense in stressing out about the future and the plans that we have when everyday is leading us in a new direction.  OUR plan just gets in the way of THE plan.  Why plan when you will end up where you are supposed to be regardless of our best human attempts to thwart it.

I love the college I am attending.  It suits me.  But even though I am happy, I am not complete.  I had plans.  To get out of this town, to go spread my wings, take the world by storm, be a successful fashion magazine editor, run with the fashionable, and discover the world.  I found love.  In the middle of my plan, a guy stepped into my life at the most inopportune moment-- or was it?  I went away to college.  I left my town, went to that prestigious college, with the pricey nametag, and took those first steps towards achieving my plan.  But is this the ultimate route?  Just because it's the only one I've seen for years does not mean it is.  I'm taking my blinders off.  We all have blinders on when we reach for the "dream" future.  The blinders that cause us to sacrifice happiness for "success," that delay our real destiny.  These blinders are starting to fall off, and I can see all of the possible pathways I can take that will all lead me to my future.

I see now that it might be more beneficial for me to deviate from my stubbornly laid plan.  maybe my next plan will be to stop planning, and just follow.

Why pay thousands of dollars for an education in a field that you will most likely, not wind up pursuing?  Why sacrifice love, family, happiness for the name and prestige, when everything you ever need to succeed is inside of you.

I have learned so much this year, and I know that I would not have found any of this out if I did not go away to Marist.

Everything in my life I realize now is perfect.  Every single thing I have done, all of the choices I made lead me to exactly where I am.  Everyone I've met has taught me everything I know now.  Every  situation I've been in has contributed to the person I am becoming.  Where I was, in my small town, forced me to leap outside of the walls and find that I can make it on my own.  Where I am has taught me that I am independent, but has also made me realize that what I wanted to get away from is exactly what I need.  Plans for careers, plans for love, plans for the future, they all change, but family, and the friends who are like family are a definite.

None of these things I would have learned without the people around me.  Everyone in my life, from my family, to my friends in Delaware, to my friends at Marist, is so vital to who I am as a person, who I am becoming, and who I am meant to be.

It's the people that will matter years from now, not the place.

I am not saying I am giving up on my dream to get out of this town, to go spread my wings, take the world by storm, be a successful fashion magazine editor, run with the fashionable, and discover the world, I am just saying maybe there is an easier way, a way I'd be happier.  I'm starting to see a new path that does not cost thousands of dollars, that does not cost my happiness, and that most importantly in the end does not cost my dreams.

As my good friend keeps reminding me, "It doesn't matter where you go.  You will make the opportunities for yourself regardless of where you are."

Oh it's a funny thing.  We've got a lot to learn from each other.  I'm absorbing all that the people around me have to teach me, and I'm ready to keep learning.