Students · Purpose
You Don't Have to Know Yet
The pressure to have a five-year plan at twenty is a fairly new invention, and not a kind one.
Somewhere along the way, "what do you want to do with your life" became a question you're expected to answer with confidence at nineteen. Most adults who ask it couldn't have answered it honestly at that age either.
Purpose tends to reveal itself through experience, not advance planning — you try things, you notice what makes you feel alive and what drains you, and a direction slowly becomes visible. That process can't be rushed by anxiety, only by time and attention.
If you don't know yet, you're not behind. You're exactly on schedule for a question that was never supposed to have an early answer.