Graduating from college is just one step in a series of milestones as a young adult. The next milestone comes soon after, with a new job, often in a new city. In one swift motion, you go from being a college graduate, to a young professional, and slowly your identity starts to change. You are no longer just a "college kid." You're an adult. A real one. And that's scary.
Finding your place as a young adult and a young professional can be a challenge just as any other milestone in one's life. The things you were once comfortable with and people you were once comfortable around have changed in ways you never thought they would. When you're in college, you want to be in college forever, but when you graduate you might not really feel that way anymore. College was fun, but you're done, you've moved on, you're over it, and finding your new identity involves a new title that no longer reads "college kid."
Things change. Suddenly, you lose connection with people who are only a few years younger than you. You're not there anymore, you're not in that place. Your priorities change, and who you are as a person slowly changes too. Suddenly, you're going to bed at 11 p.m. and planning your dinner for the next week and making your grocery list and budgeting. You stop binge drinking on Tuesdays, and you might even stop binge drinking on weekends too. Going out becomes a hassle to plan, and your late night weekends slowly fade into exhaustion during your work week. And maybe you're only in your 20s but you just can't do it the way you were when you were a freshman. But that's not the big change, that's just growing up. What becomes clear once you graduate is how naive you were in college, and you see that naivety all around you in your younger peers -- and that's just how it is. You're still young and naive too, but you know more now than you did then and even more, you have a <em> degree <em> now.
And that piece of paper matters more than you think. People will treat you with more respect because of it. You might still be young and stupid and naive as hell, but you have a degree, and not everyone does, so do your best to remember that when you doubt yourself.
Listen and take advice but also speak up. Lean in, sit at the table, take on a bigger role than you're suppose to, volunteer for everything. People are only going to treat you like some kid if you act like one, so become valuable. It's not until you step up to the table and take on those big-boy responsibilities that people will begin to treat you as what you are: an adult.
Your life is in your own hands, and it's time to start taking risks, even the small risk. That risk might be moving abroad for six months, it might be turning down a job offer, it might be quitting your job to go back to school. Either way, it's going to happen and there's ultimately going to be a choice that you and you alone have to make.
Ultimately, you're in control of your own life now. No one's going to tell you how to live it. No one's going to force you to buy vegetables or eat breakfast in the morning or go to the gym. That's your job now.
Everyone is done telling you how to live your life -- your parents, your teachers, your friends. And it's time to start having more faith in how you live your life. You can only live according to your rules and no one else's.
Your life is in your own hands, and at first, it sounds scary but actually, it's amazing.
All you have to do is remember that you are the pilot of your own life, and where you decide to take it is completely up to you. Getting there isn't always going to be easy. There are going to be challenges and roadblocks. You may even fail completely. But it's not untrue that you are capable of doing whatever you set your mind to. However, there's a difference of being capable and actually going out there and doing it. So go do it, by any means necessary.
