When life gives you lemons

From my time working at print media, I've learnt that magazines work two months in advance. This means that for our October issue, we are already working on it in August. Some magazines can work up to three months in advance; I was only so lucky to work in one where I won’t have to project my ideas so far ahead in time.

Actually, I wish I could work on my life how I would work on a magazine: planning in advance. I’m not even planning for what I’m having for dinner tomorrow, let alone what I’ll be doing in two months time (I actually do know and I’m really excited about it, but that’s besides the point).

Some part of me believes that everything will fall into place just the way it’s supposed to no matter how hard I try to plan my future. But that other part of me is skeptical and I know better that things won’t just fall into my lap. So what do I do? Of course the wise answer is to plan regardless of how it will be like 5 years down the road. But if a different path is carved out for me then, I would have wasted years of planning.

My father never dreamed of sitting down at a fancy restaurant, having the best steak and wine dinner in the world (it really was) for my 19^th birthday. He came from a small village where everyone knew each other and where only two known people owned a car. Now, he lives in the city, after having travelled to almost every continent. He acquired a degree for teaching English but never taught a class in his life. Instead, he started up one of the country’s best advertising agencies back in his day.

Truth is, life is weird. You graduate high school and after, you’re going to earn a degree in accounting or law or whatever. But then you end taking what seems to be an endless gap year. I never thought I’d actually get a real definition of the phrase, “You’ll never know what life throws at you”, but now I have. And I still don’t know what else it’s going to throw at me. Maybe tomorrow… Maybe next year. I also don't know when it's going throw something at me. But when I finally get it, I will be prepared.