I'VE COME TO REALIZE that in order to have direction in life you don't necessarily need to have an agenda, for example, a career plan, a school plan, a relationship plan—or any plan at all. Of course, if you do have one, and it happens to work out, that's great. In fact, sometimes life seems much easier when you do have a plan.
I didn't.
I remember very distinctly the feelings I had in my mid-20s after the unexpected end of a long-term relationship, and I was forced to think about my future. As many of us know, at that age there's a lot of pressure to be moving in a specific direction with a career in mind. I felt that pressure all around me. And although it was coming mostly from the outside—from some of my friends and family—much of it was also self-inflicted. I racked my brain trying to come up with a path that I was interested in pursuing. I tried to imagine myself spending money and time on graduate school pursuing a particular interest I might have. And I tried to envision myself in a lifelong career (this was particularly hard to imagine).
