I used to think I was supposed to know what I was doing. What I wanted.Where I was going. What came next.

There is something comforting about having an answer. It makes everything feel organized. You have a plan. You know the next step. You can explain what you're working toward.

But life rarely stays that organized for very long.

Plans change.Interests change. Things that once seemed important stop being important. Something unexpected catches your attention and suddenly you find yourself interested in something you never planned to explore.

For a while, I thought this meant I was behind. Maybe I needed a clearer direction. Maybe I needed to make a better plan. Maybe everyone else had figured something out that I hadn't.

The older I get, the less convinced I am. Maybe not knowing is not always a problem. Maybe sometimes it is an advantage. When you don't know exactly where you're going, you remain open to noticing things.

You can follow an interesting idea without needing to justify where it leads. You can learn something simply because it interests you. You can start a project without knowing whether it will become anything. You can change your mind.

That last one is probably underrated.

We put a strange amount of pressure on ourselves to be consistent with decisions we made in the past. If we said we wanted something, we feel like we should continue wanting it. If we chose a direction, changing direction can feel like failure.

But people change.The things we care about change with us. There is nothing particularly noble about staying on a road simply because we once said we would.

Sometimes the better decision is to turn. I think curiosity works better than certainty.

Certainty asks, “What is the answer?”

Curiosity asks, “What happens if I try?”

The second question is much more useful when you are still figuring things out.

It gives you permission to experiment.

Try something.Keep it if it works. Leave it if it doesn't.Move on.

There doesn't always need to be a grand reason. Some of the things that eventually become meaningful start as small curiosities.

A book you picked up without a plan.

A place you decided to visit.

A conversation that stayed in your head.

A project you started because you wanted to see if you could build it.

A thought you wrote down because you didn't want to forget it.

You don't always know what these things will become.

That's the interesting part.

I think we sometimes confuse having direction with having a destination. You can have direction without knowing the final destination. You can know what kind of person you want to become without knowing exactly what your life will look like. You can value curiosity, honesty, independence, creativity, or kindness without having a five-year plan for each of them.

Maybe that is enough.

There are still plenty of things I don't know.There are things I haven't tried. Places I haven't been. Ideas I haven't understood. Projects I haven't started.

I don't think I need to turn all of those unknowns into problems.

Some of them can simply remain unknown for a while.

There is freedom in that. Not the freedom of having everything figured out.

The opposite.The freedom of realizing that you don't have to.

You can start somewhere.

You can pay attention.

You can change direction when you learn something new.

And you can let the next step reveal itself.

Maybe I don't need to know exactly where all of this is going.

You don't always need to know where you're going. Sometimes not having everything figured out leaves room to explore, change and discover.

Maybe for now, it is enough to keep moving, keep learning, and stay curious about what comes next.