“What if I don’t get into my dream school? What if I can’t balance working and going to school? What if I can’t manage being a good student, friend, and colleague? What if I can’t handle business school? What if I’m not enough?” These are the thoughts that run through my head everyday. These are the thoughts that keep me up at night. The questions loop in my head and I don’t have an answer for any of them. I wish I could say I’m always a ray of sunshine, but I’m currently living in a moment of “what ifs.”

With every success I have, another question pops in my head. It seems to be easier to be fearful, than to live in the moment. 

I find it interesting that oftentimes we plan for the worst, but don’t embrace the good things that happen. I have a habit of celebrating an accomplishment of mine for a couple moments and then starting to figure out how I’m going to navigate the problems that come with it. It’s safe to say that I’m a worrier and a planner. Why don’t we embrace the good things that happen in life? Why is it easier to question things we don’t know the answers to yet, rather than enjoy the things we already know about?

While I have no idea if I’ll get into my dream school, I do know that I’m a hard worker. And why isn’t that enough for now? We can’t control everything that happens to us. If I could, I’m sure I would. But life doesn’t work that way. All we can really control are our own actions and reactions to things. While it might not seem like it, we ultimately get to decide a lot of what happens to us. If we are passive and just let life happen to us, of course we’ll feel like sitting ducks. But if we take an active role in our lives, we can make a huge impact.

I struggle between being positive and having moments of doubt. This feels like a very scary moment for me, because I’m moving in a direction with a lot of unknowns. I have no idea what my life will look like a year from now or even six months from now! But that can be a good thing. The journey I’m about to take in my life is going to be unlike anything I’ve encountered before. And I’ll be honest, I’m a little nervous.

However, the one thing that is known is that I’m going to have to tackle whatever issues come my way. It’s okay not to know the future. We don’t have a crystal ball. But what we do have is ourselves. What we know is that we survive and fight through the struggles. So even if there are tons of questions floating in our heads, we know that eventually we’ll get the answers and we’ll come up with a plan when the time is right.