Can you help me out with something? I’m trying to figure out who it is that decides what’s acceptable in society. Is it a single person, or is it a group of people like in that movie, The Skulls (don’t shake your head at me; you watched it too. Joshua Jackson? Paul Walker? C’mon)? I need to know this because whoever it is making these decisions for society deserves a swift punch to the throat. And that’s putting it nicely.

In today’s American world, there is a certain way adulthood is to be approached. If you’re “smart” about it, as soon as you graduate high school, you pick a career at the age of 18, and then spend the next four years in college learning all you can about your chosen field of study. Then, once you’ve graduated college in four years or less (IT CANNOT BE MORE THAN FOUR YEARS!), you are to immediately find a job in said field, spending the next 40 to 50 years working and advancing in your field of study. Along the way, you also should have found a mate, produced 2.5 children, and bought a house in a quiet neighborhood all while possessing many leather bound books that make your office smell of rich mahogany . It’s really all very simple. Except when it’s not…

I don’t hide the fact that I’ve never been to college. College wasn’t for me, and I knew that. Does that allow others to look upon me and my qualifications in a more negative light? Sometimes. Do I regret not attending some institution where higher learning was made available? Nope. Is my opinion slanted in support of those who prefer to take the time to figure out who they are as a person rather than blindly commit to a life in which they will be unhappy? Without question. I understand that some folks know what they want and who they want to be from an early age. But what of the rest? What about those square pegs that don’t fit in society’s round holes? Why must they be discounted simply because they’ve found a reason to breathe, and have taken their time in finding their own way through life?

I’ve said all of that to lead to this: don’t let someone else tell you what type of life you should be leading. There isn’t some massive scoreboard that says you have to be at this point in your life by this age, or you have to have this accomplished by this point in life. That’s all rubbish. Just because those around you have found their way quicker than you have does not mean you are falling behind. We each have our own path, and that path is both chosen and blazed by us—and only us. If you don’t want to go to college immediately, don’t. If you’d rather take a few semesters off to figure out who you are and what you want out of this life, then do that. Ultimately, it’s your life to lead. Be what you want to be, do what you want to do, and do it on your own timetable.

I get that my “advice” may come with some caveat. Who am I to offer life advice? But in the end, we all must choose our own path. It can’t be chosen for us. Only we can decide what will make us happy, and what will fulfill us to the point of contentment. It’s in those life decisions that we finally find ourselves. Society can’t determine your path for you—at least they shouldn’t be able to.

Find your own path, and go your own way; you’ll be glad you did.

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