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For a long time I was searching for that one niche degree, that could set me apart, and thus make my career. Every blog I read on the subject said go with your passions. I’m young and have a wide variety of interests. I don’t know how to narrow it down yet, and because of what I didn’t (and still don’t) know what to do; I stopped.

I wasn’t moving forward because I wanted to find “The Magic Plan”. Now there is a big market of people selling “Magic Plans” for everything from diet to careers. They’ve been selling magic solve all plans since man was first able to chisel symbols into stone. But none of these are magic plans, they are just plans; sold for profit (either monetary, fame, spiritual), and full of whatever biases the writer also believes in.

I am not saying that there is nothing valid in these plans. A good plan still has plenty of application, but not one of them is a magic plan that is going to fix everything for your life.

I was so terrified of choosing the wrong plan, that life ended up happening without me, and my personal goals were being left behind in the process. Recently though on a stressful day where I was caught a few miles from home on a bicycle in a thunder storm with errands to run some of the quotes I read started to sink in.

I had stopped moving forward because I had thought that if I chose the wrong plan that I would have to stay like that. I was acting like it would not be possible to change course. I was also believing that there was a degree that would make my career, and thus make it easier to provide for a family.

I was missing that the degree is not responsible for making my career. I am. No plan is responsible for how my life goes. I am. And it was such a release to realize that. I can go after things that I enjoy learning about, and whether a degree is “practical” or not the degree isn’t going to be what makes or breaks me anyways.

The things that will make or break me are SELF-KNOWLEDGE, EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION, ATTITUDE, INTEGRITY, HONOR, and PERSEVERANCE. Those things will be a much better brand to be known for than the guy with the Magic Degree, or the guy with the Magic Plan. There is no magic plan. Plans alone are just plans, it is only the individual that can take a plan, and make it magic. But even then magic is in the individual, and the possibility of that magic is in you and me.