There is a question people ask a lot when you finish something.
What’s next?
It sounds innocent.
Most of the time, it probably is.
But when you do not know the answer, it can start to feel much bigger than a simple question.
For years, the next step was obvious.
Finish school.
Go to university.
Pass the next semester.
Finish the degree.
Even when the path was difficult, there was still a path.
Then suddenly you reach the end of it and everyone seems to expect another clear answer.
A job.
A city.
A plan.
A five-year vision, preferably explained in one sentence.
And sometimes you simply do not have one.
I think there is a strange pressure in your twenties to make every decision feel permanent.
As if the first job has to be the right one.
As if choosing one direction means closing every other door.
As if everyone else received a map that somehow never arrived for you.
It is easy to look around and think other people have figured it out.
Especially when all you see are announcements.
New job.
New apartment.
New degree.
New city.
Very rarely does someone post the weeks where nothing happened.
The applications that went nowhere.
The plans that changed.
The uncertainty in between.
I am trying to get more comfortable with not knowing exactly what comes next.
Not because I do not care about my future.
Maybe because I care enough not to choose something only so I can say I have a plan.
There will be another step.
And then probably another one after that.
For now, I think it is okay if I cannot see the entire staircase.