For the past 16 or so years, we’ve essentially had our lives planned for us. Go to school, learn something, go to college, learn some more, graduate, get a job. While many of our paths differ and some of us aren’t graduating from college, but graduating from one phase of life to the next, we all can understand this period of transition and the expectation to have at least some things figured out.
I’m sure I’m not alone when I say, I have little to no idea what the f*** I’m doing. We’ve graduated from having the title of “student” for the past 16 plus years. Now, we’re suddenly expected to change the title we’ve grown so close to, to something else like “adult,” “professional,” and “working class.” Maybe it’s just me, but, the changing of titles from familiar to unfamiliar, isn’t easy.
Though we’re excited, proud, and ready to begin this next chapter of our lives, it’s understandable as to why some us are adjusting to our new titles of “post grad” and “alumni” a little more slowly than others.
For most of us, I’m assuming we’ve heard the questions, “so what are you doing after you graduate? What now? What are your plans?” The lucky ones of us answer confidently, spewing out the name of our post-graduate employers with ease and satisfaction. Some of us may resist the urge to roll our eyes, vomit, or drown in a pool of embarrassment.
We hopelessly think, please don’t judge me. please don’t remind me that I have nothing to post a Facebook status about.
It’s understandable as why we fall into a hole of self-consciousness, doubt, and inevitable comparison, for prior to this moment, our lives have essentially been planned for us. Suddenly, we’re expected to immediately know which 9-5 employment sector is the one for us.
Not only that, we’re expected to have an eloquent and impressive response to the question, “so what are your plans now?” We should know where we’re living, who we’re living with, how we’re going to start paying our student loans, what to wear to work, and how to make friends outside of the classroom and institution provided social life.
How in the hell do we do that?
We do it just as we’ve done the rest of our lives, we figure it out. We try with might to resist the urge of comparing ourselves to our fellow college graduates. We attempt to make sense of post-grad life in any way we personally need to. We recognize everyone is different – we have different dreams, different passions, and different talents.
We embrace our new titles or create our very own titles for the first time ever. We recognize our tendencies to plan and control, understanding that some things, like finding a good job, can’t happen overnight.
We do our very best to refrain from and comparing ourselves to the overly positive curated Facebook statuses we see every day.
We continue to work hard, discovering ourselves and our professional abilities. We resume with life, living the way we want and need to, knowing if we don’t, life won’t slow down and wait until we’re ready.
But we also know that it’s okay to slow down and smell the roses – we’ve earned it. We’ve earned the right to follow our own path, embracing it and creating it in a way we feel is right for ourselves, even if that means having no immediate plans.
As newly defined adults, we’re expected to do things on our own, including making the decision to have plans or to not have plans. Really, we can do whatever we want.
We are self-titled, educated, powerful post-graduates with a huge world of possibilities in front of us. We can’t have everything figured out; we can’t always have a plan. With the knowledge that comes with being a post-grad, we have the power to say, it’s really okay if we don’t have plans yet.
No plans can be very fun. No plans can allow us to do the spontaneous things we’ve always wanted to do. No plans mean that anything can happen.
If we can make it through 16 plus years of schooling, we can do anything.
