Plans

Inevitability is setting in. Pumpkin spice lattes at Starbucks are back (WHOO!) and I had to put on the only long sleeve shirt in my closet this morning. Fall is in the air, and Vanderbilt is putting its nose to the grindstone. First exams are coming up, job applications are due and test results are coming in. My dad emailed me his hotel reservation for graduation in the spring. Sigh. I thought the year had just started.

In 30 minutes, one of my best friends will find out her MCAT score. This is the second time she has taken the test and a lot is riding on this number, this simple little number. If her score goes up, she’ll apply to med schools and start the education to become a doctor that makes my liberal arts undergrad degree seem like preschool playtime.  But if her score goes down, my friend will face crushing disappointment. Or so she perceives it. She’s wanted to be a pediatrician since high school and all of her plans are in the balance right now, all based on this score. Her value to the schools is only a number, but I know she’s so much more.

One of the things that people need to know about our generation is how much we want to be valued. We’ve been raised to achieve, to set ourselves apart. We didn’t grow up playing, we grew up training, It was a competition from the beginning, because we were taught that our value was contained in what we could produce or achieve. My friend says she knows that her score doesn’t define her, but in a way, it does. She might be able to explain on the application her passion for people, but an admissions officer will never be able to see her carefully bandage the twisted ankle of one of her campers or her calming effect on my frazzled nerves. Because of culture’s obsession with achievement, the way my friend wanted to help people may have to change.

You’d think we’d be ok with change, but we’re not. Millenials come from parents who scheduled playdates and practices, and we do it to ourselves. Go with the flow? Not with a med school application in the works, running a service organization and a part time job. We’re ADD about our activities, but we don’t like changing our plans. And leaving things up to chance? Yeah, right.

We want to control what happens to us because our achievements are how we are evaluated. “And I need at least a ___ on my ___ to get into ____” is a phrase I have heard after many a dramatic monologue from an exhausted college peer. We make plans (or plans are made for us) at such a young age and when we figure out that they might not pan out exactly the way we wanted, we’re at a loss.

Lost at 22? It’s not entirely groundbreaking, but I think it’s more difficult for us because we have such high expectations placed on us. Sometimes, though, things just don’t work out the way we want them to. We’ve got to keep moving, keep searching for things that will fulfill us as people, not other people who will see us as just things.

As I’ve mentioned, our generation has many challenges we need to rise to, and that’s fine, but we need to rise to the challenges as people, not test scores or resumes. Plan B shouldn’t have to stand for Plan Bad or Plan Bust. We need step away from Plan A and Plan B and just be. Plan Be. Be yourself, and be happy with that.