When you turn eighteen, you kind of know you're not an adult yet, even though people say you are.
You spend the next couple years ruminating on how much you're not an adult. Meanwhile, the world throws all sorts of grown-up things at you, like setting up your own doctor's appointments. For some people, these are the college years, when not only do you have to figure out how to set up doctor's appointments, but you also have to decide on a career while the debt builds.
As I go into my senior year of college, the prospect of entering "the real world" is daunting. Did I choose the right major? Did I take the right classes? Did I make the right connections? Heck, did I eat well enough to keep my body healthy during the future years?
Maybe you too are a soon-to-be senior, not quite sure you're an adult yet, but getting all your battle armor ready anyway for this final year of tests and trials. The "real world" awaits, where everything you've done so far with your twenty-two-ish years of life comes to fruition.
If you're panicking a little, it's okay. We all are. But there's good news: you're probably panicking slightly more than necessary. While talking to my sister (also a student of college-age), I've realized something that I don't think many people, if any, have ever told me.
Graduation isn't the end.
The future is not set in stone, stretching out ahead of you.
Most importantly, nothing says that what you do now must define you for the rest of your life.
I know that, for me, I fear that my success and fulfillment in life depends on my doing everything perfectly on the first try. I must choose the perfect major, get perfect grades, get the perfect internship, and have the perfect job. It feels as though, if there's so much as a hiccup in any of these steps, I'll fall behind and never catch up to my dreams. I'm afraid of every little defect I discover in myself, afraid it will stop me from becoming the person I want to be.
And yet, I forget that I have already transformed myself so many times. Like most of us, I have gone through dozens of strange teenage phases, all of which worked together to make me who I am today. Even my dreams for my career have changed; when I was young I thought I was going to be a gymnast, and then I thought I was going to be an illustrator, and now I dream of working for my favorite fashion companies.
The point I'm getting at is that we think we are only allowed to redefine ourselves up until the point we graduate. We need to remember that just because the diplomas we receive will tell us we're "finished" with our education doesn't mean we aren't allowed to change.
As the sun sets on this chapter of our lives, we must remember that life is unpredictable, and we can only do the best with what knowledge we have and what circumstances come our way. We will have happy times and sad times, and we will occasionally make mistakes. But we have something like eighty years ahead of us to transform ourselves as many times as we need. The future is bright and full of possibilities, like a new day!
