Even though junior year has just begun, I’m already feeling the pressure. Every night at dinner, I get bombarded by all sorts of questions.

What do you want to do? Where are you going to college? Where do you see yourself in the future? These are questions I hear from my family, and I expect other juniors hear them from theirs. We are expected to have it all figured out. How are we supposed to have it all together and know our whole life plan when for all of our lives we have been told what to do?

Parents often make the mistake of thinking that helping us make all of our life choices and doing everything for us is okay. In reality, their control has made us believe we will always have them to help us. Don’t get me wrong, my mother does a lot of things for me, and honestly, it has made me rely on her more in life. I can’t imagine my mom not having Mac & Cheese ready for me when I get home from a five-hour shift waiting tables at Cottage Grove or having her wash and pick up the clothes I leave all over the house.

Now that junior year has rolled around, I suppose it’s time to get our act together; figure out what school we want to attend and what our whole life after that will look like. I guess it’s also time for me to start making my own Mac & Cheese. It’s a lot to take in, but it’s going to be okay even if you’re like me and you don’t know your five year plan. It’s okay if you’re undecided your freshman year of college and you don’t have it all together.

That’s what these next few years of our lives are about. It’s about not being scared of failure and getting back up again. Life isn’t always black and white. It gets messy but that’s okay because it’s great to watch the messy parts of life come together for those few moments.

Life is too short and too precious to spend our every waking moment of these next few years worrying our hearts out. It’s time to just be calm and live in the moment because if we don’t, we will wish we did.

Next time someone asks you about what you’re majoring in or where you’re going to college, don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know” or “I haven’t thought that far ahead.” In the end, it will all come together. And mom, I promise I’ll start picking up my clothes.