As a person who lived in the future I couldn’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t plotting my next move or setting my newest goal. At the age of nine I started imagining my dreams for the future, and over the next 14 years every decision I made had been with that life plan in mind. I had gotten into my ideal college,  graduated with the degree I had intended upon, and managed to land a few internships which gave me all of the experience I could have asked for in order to fall seamlessly into my dream job the Monday after I moved the tassel on my cap from right to left.

Let me elaborate when I say dream job. As a senior in high school I wrote in a paper that my dream job once graduating college would be working as an assistant for a boutique luxury wedding and event planning firm in Chicago, ideally with four to five seasoned planners. Four years later, and exactly 13 days before my graduation, I was offered a position as the studio manager for one of the foremost luxury wedding and event planning companies in Chicago. And there were precisely five senior event planners at that time. 

I couldn’t have planned it any better.

About a year later, I found myself at the age of 23 truly living the life I had daydreamed about as a nine year old girl. A prospering career working with, and learning from, the most amazing people, absorbing all of the information I could, in an industry that I loved, the sweetest little apartment in a prime post-grad neighborhood, great friends within walking distance, and a loving family just about an hour away. My perfectly planned, and meticulously curated, reality.

I am not, by nature, a risk taker or a rule breaker.  So why then was I so tempted to press pause on my career and uproot myself to move across the world to do something I’ve never done before? Why was I unraveling the perfect plan that so many girls in their early 20’s would have died for? It was a life changing combination of a quarter life crisis and a taste of wanderlust.

And so, there I went. A traditional girl breaking all of her own rules, trusting a gut instinct and simply saying, “hey, why not”. Since the day I arrived in Korea just over a year ago, two oversized suitcases in hand, I haven’t looked back. While I’m sure I’ll be hopping back into my traditional life in the not so distant future, I’m excited to see where these few years of adventure take me.