Everything Works Out in the End by Richard O. '28

College application season is here, and with that often comes the tumultuous fear about what life after high school might look like. Having gone through the college application cycle myself three years ago, I often think back to the fears I had around this time about what my future would look like and where I would end up going. Back then, I had this perfect image of what my college experience would be, what I would do, and where I would go, but if things didn’t go as planned, I was afraid of what would happen otherwise. It got to a point where I put so much energy into perfecting my application that I needed someone like Leanne ’30 in her blog to tell me to just submit it.

But even after submitting, I still felt anxious about how my future would turn out at the time and spent my days asking myself whether I’d get in or if I would actually like the schools I applied to or what my career would even look like if I didn’t. And for me, if there was one piece of advice that I always ignored from the adults around me, it was the statement “everything always works out” followed by a sentence like “you’ll be fine no matter where you go or what you do”. Because to me, these adults didn’t know my future any better than I did. They didn’t know what my plans were or what I needed to achieve them. So the sentence felt like a promise that no one could keep because no one can see the future.

Now, 3 years down the line, I’ve started to realize that maybe those adults at the time were on to something with their favorite cliche sentences. Despite not being in my shoes and living my experiences, there is something about valuing the perspective that everything happens in a way that just works out that they saw that makes going about big decisions so much more relieving. Because when you think about it, a life in which everything happens the way you think it will would be a boring one. Instead of experiencing all the story options, everything would be a scripted plan that already sits in your head. People don’t (usually) watch movies knowing the whole plot already because you lose the fun of experiencing the story for the first time. And in that same way, I think that as the college application cycle takes place this year, there’s an appreciation to be had for all the possibilities that your life can take on in these next few months. Because no matter where you are or where you go, you’ll always have an opportunity to shape your life into a story that is exciting and unexpected – and that I think is one of the most beautiful parts about being human.

So if you’re stressed about your essays, or getting into the perfect school, or what the future holds for you, just take a minute to breathe and appreciate everything you’ve done to get to where you are. And imagine everything you can continue to accomplish in this world just by being you.

In the grand scheme of things, the college you go to doesn’t even define your potential and the things you can do for the world. Only you do. And you have a lifetime after college to see the many ways in which that can happen.

A song that explains this message a lot more simply and beautifully