Cate Otto is a bookish architect-turned-philosopher who traded the certainty of life in an office for freelancing from the not-so-safe haven of coffee shops and a dusty desk in her boyfriend’s apartment. She has ghostwritten a number of books on a variety of topics, including esotericism, health and wellness, personal development, and crafts and hobbies. She has a Master’s degree in philosophy and is currently working toward completing a PhD. She also gets the occasional teaching gig, and has been trying her hand at portraiture for several years.As a teenager, Cate had a plan: She would finish school, go to university, get a degree, get a steady job, and live happily ever after. Fifteen years later, she can tell you that life happens and plans are thwarted, and all we can do is get up—repeatedly—and try again.Make new plans, watch them change, and keep rebuilding. Life is capricious, cruel, and quite beautiful; it’s a kaleidoscope of chaos that makes getting up in the morning a risk worth taking.