Emma Caroline Brown

Editor

March is ending, April is arriving, and we are 42 days away from graduation, which is sure to stoke anxiety about the future as we close out this chapter of life.

I certainly struggle with anxiety about my future. I think I have things figured out, but a new path may come up, and then my plans are uprooted. Plans I had envisioned during my senior year of high school changed during my freshman year here, and plans I thought out just this time last year have drastically changed.

My planning tendencies get the best of me whenever I try to picture the far-off future, but time does fly by, and it seems to be better to have the bare basics of a plan than none at all. However, the future will forever be unknown, so we cannot have a complete, defined plan.

If you are graduating soon, you are probably being bombarded by questions like “What are you doing after graduation?” “Do you have any job possibilities?” “Where do you see yourself in the next couple of years?”

These situations can be nerve-wracking because we might not have definitive answers, which is what people often expect when asking these questions. We might face judgement or criticism when we say, “I do not know” or “I’m not sure,” but we should try not to feel odd when we answer in these ways.

We either have too many options or not enough, and either way, it is hard to choose a path that will impact us for the rest of our lives. But there is something about the unknown that can be beautiful if we do not focus on the anxiety within our future-driven mindsets.

Being in the unknown can lead us to new opportunities, new friends, new mindsets and new perspectives that can change how we approach life and how we care for ourselves and others. The unknown can be intimidating and scary, especially for those of us who are big on planning, but the mindset of “everything works out in the end” can change your perspective on handling the unknown.

By this time next year, you may be somewhere in life that you did not plan on being in, but if you take a moment and pause, you can realize you are right where you need to be. It will be hard to understand and appreciate this, but it is important we eventually do because it can lead us to new, beautiful chapters that may also have a positive impact on those around us.