When you are born you are given a set of tools, and told you must build a house for yourself. So you imagine a castle crafted from clouds and stardust, with turrets spiralling high into the heavens. You picture stained glass windows, and golden chandeliers dripping with miniature suns and moons. Your eyes grow bright and wide with wonder, filled with possibility.

Until the world turns your gaze. Until parents start tailoring your dreams to fit their version of reality. Only Kings and Queens can live in castles, they will say, only birds and astronauts can touch the clouds, hold the moon. They will tell you, that there are limits to what you can achieve, before giving you a pre-made blueprint, drawn from everything they wanted for themselves.

They will be the architect, and expect you to lay the bricks, plaster the walls. You will build a house, but it will not be your home. Just a roof over your head. And for some, that will be enough. But for others, it will only serve as a garish reminder of everything that could have been. Of a dream, swept under the rug of reality.

But here’s the thing: it is never too late to tear it all down.

Which is to say, the expectation that you will have your life together by a certain age is wrong. You can go to sleep with one dream, and wake with another. You can choose one path, and find a different road along the way. Or you can stand still, holding a broken compass in your hand: lost and unsure.

Because life isn’t built from a blueprint.

But from the combination of today and tomorrow.