To the Rising Seniors,

When the day comes to walk out onto that stage in front of thousands of your peers, it won’t matter what type of colorful bands or ribbons are draped across your shoulders. All that matters is the piece of paper you’ve been handed after four years of painstakingly hard work and countless hours of diving in and out of the library. What to do next? Well, for some people, they have a job lined up and plan on moving their possessions into their cubicle by the next week, and others are heading off to graduate school in the fall to pursue further education. The rest may not have any earthly idea what they want to do, despite the degree they just received. What the majority of people fail to realize is that this is perfectly alright. You don’t have to know where your life is heading at the present moment, and you most certainly do not have to give up on your dreams because you have a ‘license to work’ now. Happiness does not in any way have a price tag. Happiness is gauged upon your idea of success and fulfillment, and there are some thoughts that may help you along the way to finding it.

Know that you don’t owe anyone anything. If you’re young and without any dependents, realize that this is your life and no one else’s. Your family or your community may have an idea of what they want to see out of you because they worked hard to raise you into what they hoped for you to become. They measure their success on your triumphs, and will always take credit for your victories in some way or another. The most important thing to remember is that this life is yours and, no matter what you do, you owe it to yourself to be fulfilled. If you were always told that you should choose a career in one thing or another but you’ve never truly had an interest in that particular field, then why pursue it? If, at the end of the day, you’ve taken the liberty of taxing away your time and energy to fulfill some destiny that others have envisioned for you, then you aren’t living for yourself. Those people may be momentarily proud of your achievements, but even those praises will eventually fade into memory. You could be stuck with a career where you may often find yourself daydreaming about what could have been.

Also, you will always have your critics. Most of the time people will not commend you on your success, but you will always get an earful from those who have a negative opinion. There is no scientific explanation for this, it’s just human nature. No matter what happens, as long as you are satisfied with what you have chosen to do with your time and it has no profoundly negative effect on those around you, then give those naysayers the one-fingered salute.

The next realization is that some things take time to fully form. The ultimate goal is to secure a lifestyle where you find yourself as restless as a 10-year-old on Christmas Eve every night before you go to sleep. You want to be excited to hop out of bed when your alarm clock sounds every morning, but instant gratification is your worst enemy as far as this is concerned. You have to work your way to the top, and sometimes the journey may seem endless. Most people have had to struggle to live their dreams, but let life take you where you need to be. You’ll eventually get to where you want to end up, even if it takes a few years to find it. It may not be exactly what you expected either.

Another thing to keep in mind is to do all that you have aspired to do before things get incredibly serious. If you have always loved to travel, hop on the next flight out of town with no regrets. If you do not have the money to afford an airline ticket, grab a seat on a Greyhound bus. It may not be the most quick or direct route to your destination, but it is certainly cheaper. The first step is always the most difficult, but once you take it, you’ll be glad you did. If your goal is to get away from your hometown, don’t be afraid to sign that lease agreement for that New York studio apartment (if it doesn’t seem too sketchy). Believe it or not, you can find somewhere to live in or near big cities within a reasonable budget. Sometimes, you can get a steal on some really nice places if you look hard enough. If health insurance is a concern of yours, know that you’ve got until you turn age 26 to find a policy of your own. You can stay on your parents’ plan until then. Budget well, but refuse to let money dominate your life.

Finally, failure should not be something to fear. Everyone falls short at one point or another, large or small, and there is almost always a way out. Take Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, for instance. Ole boy could have just rotted away in that tiny cell for the rest of his life, but nope. When all hope was lost, “The Shorty” basically flushed himself down a drain like your drunken uncle’s party trick of attempting to make it seem as though there were actually stairs behind your couch. You know, the one that got old after about a dozen times? Guzman, no matter what you may think of his morals, was crafty enough to formulate an escape that allowed him to sip frozen margaritas while playing slalom with the rats on his makeshift mine-cart through his underground freedom tunnel like an alcoholic Donkey Kong. All things considered, some of us may not have the money or the resources (or the friends) to make a successful escape like that. This never stopped Andy Dufresne from escaping Shawshank Prison with only a rock hammer and Morgan Freeman’s voice doubtlessly playing in his head and egging him onward through his putrid journey away from imprisonment. Be prepared to possibly have to crawl through sewage on your hands and knees, but find that inner monologue narrated by Nelson Mandela’s doppelganger and keep on truckin’ if the day ever comes when you find yourself having to backtrack.

All in all, the idea we should invest in most once we hopefully obtain a degree is that we now have a ticket to ride anywhere. To many people, their future is defined by what boundaries their academic achievements fall within. However, just because you earned your undergraduate distinction in a specific field does not mean you must continue on with the same grunt work over and over again for the rest of your life. The world is enormous, and if you make $1,500 per year, congratulations! You are in the top twenty percent of all income earners in the world. The investment you made by getting a degree opens many doors in a certain field, but has no limits to what you can do in other areas. Once you achieve the goal of graduating, all the honors, the GPA, the positions you held while in school, the internships you completed; do not really matter in the long run unless you have been dead-set from day one on what you wanted to do for the rest of your life. If you have the paper in hand and you still have no idea what you want to do, do not get trapped in something you cannot get out of. You don’t have to commit to anything too soon because, before you know it, you may have wasted away a large chunk of your youthful years on a paper chase, only to realize the money you so desperately pursued did not equate to happiness after all.

You will have time to find a job, but you will never get your twenties back again once they have passed you by. There is no such thing as lost time, vacation time, ‘me’ time, or anything of that nature. Lifetime is all you have in your arsenal. The same people who are telling you not to set sail for fear of hurricanes or monsoons are the same people who are staying on the shore, knowing they would have given anything just to swab the deck of your catamaran. They watch the masts go up and the wind carry you into the unknown, but their bon voyage is plagued with regret that they could have just as well been where you decided to place yourself. Instead, those people are going watch you sail over the horizon before turning around, heading to work, unlocking the door to their bleak offices, and staring up at a generic print of a cobalt seascape before diving into a mound of tedious paperwork.