At the end of each class period, most of my classmates and I pull out our yearly planners and  fine-point pens like clockwork to scribble down new assignments. Far from being a sign of “good organizational skills,” our pages of color-coded of assignments, tests and looming deadlines stem from an unhealthy need to plan out our lives step-by-step and minute by minute.

We have chosen to constantly obsess over our futures after high school since freshman year, having only talked about their college and career plans since we first met. There is not place to escape phrases like “I need to go to this school if I want to do this with my life,” or “If I do this now I will get this job,” anywhere on campus.

Despite our attempts to lay out our futures five or even 10 years in advance, 55 percent of high schoolers in San Francisco do not feel positively about their readiness for college and their career, according to YouthTruth.

When I entered Convent as a freshman, I was a part of that 55 percent, and consequently I took up intense planning. Before my first day of high school I had already decided the following four years would be focused on math and soccer, as I was convinced that was all I needed and all I wanted to do.

I thought I did not have room in a perfectly crafted plan for anything other than page-long equations and hours on the field, but little did I know what I do now as a senior looks nothing like what I had imagined at 15.

While I have loved every grueling equation, I’ve been assigned and each hour of soccer with my peers, the love I have now for the humanities, art and journalism is so much more that I ever would have “planned” for myself as a small, unseasoned freshman.  

While my daily to-do lists, advanced lunch planning and jam-packed schedule make me no exception to the impulsive agenda-oriented behavior common today, four years here have taught me to refrain from holding myself down with long-term plans.

No one should live every moment and make every choice based on what a yearly planner says.