For many years, I believed planning out everything I did was the way to go. I loved planning out my week, each day, and almost everything I did, and it had been working fine with me. But planning short-term was not the only planning I did. Ever since I started my junior year in high school I knew pretty much what my plan was after graduation. For many years, I had my future all planned out—at least that’s what I thought. It’s the same old story: once I graduated from school, I was going to study in Peru, and after 5 years I would pursue a master’s degree in the U.S. Everything seemed perfectly planned out and I was definite with my decision. In fact, I was so decided, that I ignored every single advice when it came to anything that would require me to apply to schools in the U.S. Because what I recall, I completely ignored my counselor when she kept encouraging me to take SATs just in case I change my mind. Of course, I wasn’t going to, so why take them? A few months after that, I took the risk of applying to one college I really liked. I got rejected but that just encouraged me to make that a new plan for my life. However, I was bit late to take all the testing that universities required me to take. |
In our two final weeks of the Innovation Academy, we are finishing with a project called Iterating Through Life. As cool as it seemed, it definitely brought some nerves and skepticism with the idea of, again, planning my life. After what previously happened to me, I just wanted to let things happen naturally and see what life throws at me and take the opportunities I feel will mostly benefit me in the future. But that’s not how life works.
Planning your life is about knowing who you want to become, and that will come along with the things you experience. Now I know that it’s good to have a final goal that we aspire to achieve at the end, but the journey getting there is going to change along the way. No matter what plan you have, you don’t have to follow it step by step—that was my mistake. After reflecting for days about this project, I’ve decided to try learn the most about myself and who I REALLY want to be some years from now. I’ll take this opportunity to “plan” my life, but I won’t make the same mistakes of wasting opportunities that I have at the moment.