The most important person to love…

Transitional periods are not fun.  At all.  They are messy and emotional, a real test of one’s adaptability and personal fortitude.  To sum it up in one word, they are stressful.

When one goes from high school to college, often, they are leaving behind the safety net that they had relied upon for the past 17/18 years to forge a new path, a new world for themselves.  If you were a leader in high school in sports, student government, etc., going to college wipes all of that progress away and you find yourself back at square one.  Tabula rasa, to build a name for yourself once again.

Then, after four years of quasi-independence, you are thrown into adulthood full force.  Where in college you had more defined mentors and confidants, in adulthood, everything is uncertain.  Before all you had to do to prove yourself was show up and raise your hand in class; now you actually have to do the work to prove that you are worth hiring, worth giving a raise to, worth staying on the payroll.

Your place in life is uncertain.  You can’t be classified as a freshman or as a part of a major or academic society, you are just…you.  Nothing particularly special in the eyes of those around you, just one of the thousands of others who just finished college and are out looking for a job.

Before it was obvious.  Elementary school to middle school to high school and then, if you can afford it, to college. But four (or more) years of college later, your next steps are not predestined. When searching for jobs, without an obvious direction, you may be lost. You don’t know what direction to go towards because after college, you still don’t actually know what you want to do with the rest of your life.  Looking on the horizon to when the six months student loan grace period is up, you are left thinking that it kind of doesn’t matter what your “dream job” is right now because you have to start making money so you can pay off your exorbitant student loans.

It’s overwhelming.  It’s paralyzing.  Some might call it post-college depression.

Don’t worry, you’re normal.  It doesn’t matter how many happy go lucky Instagram photos your peers post, everyone is struggling with that BIG question: “so…what do I do now with this degree that cost me a shit ton of money?”

Even though we like to believe that there is only one right answer, that there is only one true path to our future success in the financial, relationship or personal satisfaction track, there is not.  But just as you were the bumbling freshman in high school and then the equally confused freshman in college, you are now the bewildered freshman of life who goes out the wrong door in the library and accidentally sets off the fire alarm.  While it may look like there is only one path now because there has always only been one path in your academic career (i.e. the path to graduation), in life, there is no one right answer.  There are a thousand different ways to get to the ultimate destination, and each path—for better or worse—will help you shape your future goals.  You will grow and learn and thrive (or suffer a defeat that can later make or break you) no matter which path you decide to take, but in order to get going, you have to take that terrifying first step.

It may not seem so simple right now, but the most important thing you can do is love and accept yourself for the confused and ignorant postgraduate you are because you will not stay ignorant forever.  You will figure something out, by reading the clues around you, taking advice from others, or learning from your own mistakes.  And over time, you will find the not so obvious paths that will further enrich your life, but this will take time.

So be patient with yourself.  Love yourself.