From the first day of elementary school, we are continuously asked what we want to be when we grow up. During my 17 years of education, my answer changed as I developed my interests and hobbies: comedian, teacher, math teacher, writer, Saturday Night Live comedian, writer, and teacher. Now, my senior year of college is nearing the end. Day after day, I deflect questions about what plans I have in store once I toss up my cap, because to be honest, I have no clue. And you probably don’t either. But here’s why it’s okay to be lost and confused.
We spend our whole lives preparing. Doing well in school so we get into honors classes, joining extracurricular activities so that we get into a good college, hiring tutors for the SATs, and picking a major at a young age so that we can figure out our life plan. What we don’t realize is that we are missing out on the important aspects of life that can truly help us decide what we want to do with our lives. At the age of 18, I decided I wanted to be a writing major. I thought I had it all figured out. I declared my major on a tiny piece of paper and signed it, marking that I knew what I wanted to do with my future.
But it’s not that simple. Our generation has this mindset that when we graduate, we need to settle down in a job that we will have for the rest of our lives. Immediately after college, my mom had a job that she stayed at for almost 30 years. The financial pressures of our time have us all thinking ahead to the end goal, where we feel economically stable and don’t have to consider living with our parents.
What happens to all the time before the end goal? When we graduate college, we are in our early twenties. We have our whole lives to figure out what we want to be — not to mention just figure out who we are. We need to fail, we need to succeed, we need to find our way on our own and explore the world before we truly know what we want to do for the rest of our lives.
Maybe you’ll never figure out what you want to do for the rest of your life. Maybe you get bored easily doing one thing over and over. But graduation doesn’t mean that you need to be stuck in one job just for the money. I know I feel the pressure to secure a job so that I know I’ll have money and a future, but what about traveling? A teacher once told my writing class a couple of weeks ago that travel writing is a legitimate job, but not one of us would ever be daring enough to try because of our generation’s financial fears. Why isn’t that a feasible plan, though?
Why shouldn’t we be able to have some time to explore the world before we REALLY are settled down? Personally, I want to live my life as worry and stress-free as I possibly can before I have other people that are dependent on me. So now, whenever someone asks me what I plan to do after graduation, I tell him or her that I am going back to camp for one last summer. They look at me like I’m a child, with a level of shock that I still won’t let go of my amazing summers at camp. Yet camp is where I do my best soul-searching. Camp pushes me out of my comfort zone and will maybe even help me realize what it is that makes me happy in life.
I then tell them, “I’m only looking at a two-year plan right now.” Because why should we think any further than that? I am not on the hunt for a job that I will be in for the rest of my life. If I find one that turns into that, then it will be a pleasant surprise. It’s just not what I need to find.
For now, I just want to do the things that are pulling me towards them. I want to take risks, I want to have to figure things out on my own, and I want to find what it is that makes me happy. Maybe that’s writing, maybe it’s working for a non-profit that betters the world, or maybe it’s teaching. Whatever it is, I’m looking ahead to the long, winding road of figuring it all out, not to the end result — because the journey is when all the fun begins.
Maybe I’m just ranting. I’m sure there are students who know exactly what it is they want to do. They’ve probably known it since kindergarten. For those of you like me — the lost and confused seniors drowning in questions about our future — open your eyes and just live. I can guarantee that the times when you are the most relaxed and carefree are the moments when you may find some clarity.
So as we finish out the last few months of this thing they call college — where we’re apparently supposed to figure out what we want to do with our futures, and where we feel the pressure to pick a major based off of the dollar value of our degree rather than what we feel passionate about — just know that it’s okay to be lost. You’re not alone. You don’t need to find all of the answers in one night. Just remember to live the adventures as you find them, and when everyone asks you what your plans are after graduation, just respond, “I’ll be living.”