When you’re trying to make lemonade, life doesn’t always give you lemons. It’s great if you do get lemons and make lemonade out of them (which you should), but it doesn’t always work that way. Success is hard to achieve. Some people make it look easy to be famous, or have cool jobs, or do really well after school. But for many people, it actually took a long time to get to that place.

Buzzfeed posted a list of people who are super successful now, but weren’t in their twenties. I guess that’s reassuring to know that people like Oprah weren’t always the superstars they are today. But is it really? It’s still terrifying to think about not having a job after you graduate from college, or not having any success with things you’d like to do.

We all have dreams and hopes for ourselves, especially college students after graduation. We’d all like to think that we’ll be doing exactly what we want once we’re out of college. As a first year, I know I shouldn’t be worrying about my future self in four years, but I can’t help it. I feel like as much as you set yourself up for success, it’s all up to whether or not life wants you to have those lemons. I definitely want those lemons, so I’m going to try to start early on my success after college.

What do I think that entails? I think that means going to career fairs, thinking about goals you want to achieve while still in college, making connections, applying for internships… Everything that they say to do in college. And ultimately I feel like even though you can try really hard to get those lemons, sometimes it doesn’t work out right away. But I do know that if you keep trying and stay motivated, you are a lot more likely to get to where you want to be. For some people, life requires more work to earn your lemons.