Edited by Tasmiyah Randeree
Time goes by way too fast. It still feels like yesterday when I was lining up in Robarts to get my picture taken for my shiny new T-card. I can remember the first-day-of-school jitters I felt in Con Hall waiting for my first Psych 100 class, feeling like a sheep being herded in with the other 1500 students. These past fours years have gone by way too fast, and before we know it, we’ll be back in Con Hall, this time up on stage, wearing our shiny caps and gowns. The days passed slowly, but the years went by faster than I ever imagined they would. Graduation is fast approaching, and although I am feeling excited, more than anything, I’m just really scared.
It seems like all anyone is interested in talking about is what we’re doing next. They look at us with their expectant eyes, awaiting our answers, as if we’re supposed to know with 100% certainty what our futures hold. But many of us don’t. I think our society puts too much pressure on us to have everything figured out, and over the course of our lives, we come to internalize this pressure. There’s so much talk about next steps and career plans and making smart decisions early, but I think we often forget just how young we are. Most of us are around 21 or 22 when we graduate. How am I supposed to decide what I want to do for the rest of my life when my prefrontal cortex isn’t even fully developed, and I’ve only recently been able to order my own drink?! It just doesn’t add up.
We’re constantly having the “what’s next?” talk with just about everyone we meet, and I think these conversations serve to reinforce the idea that we should have a plan and a good one at that. And if we don’t, we subject ourselves to feelings of inadequacy and shame. We begin to question our choices, wondering if we took the right program, or if we’d be better off doing x instead of y. This looming existential anxiety seems to follow us everywhere. And it doesn’t help when we fall down the rabbit hole further, and begin comparing ourselves to our friends and peers, identifying all the ways we’re coming up short.
I think much of the fear surrounding graduation comes from the fact that we’ll actually be leaving school. For those of us not pursuing graduate school or taking some time off, we’ll be stepping off of campus, and in the process, relinquishing one of the biggest parts of our identities. When we turn that tassel, we’ll no longer be students. We’ll just be regular people, entering the big bad world. Throughout our lives, no matter what was going on in those four months off, we always knew that soon enough we’d be dusting off our backpacks and heading back to school. We always had a safety net to catch us, as school always gave us a sense of certainty about our futures. But we won’t have that safety net anymore. We don’t have a place to return to, and instead, we’re on our own.
When we’re constantly asked about our plans for the future, it’s difficult to break ourselves out of our heads and take a step back. We get swept up in our fears and our doubts, questioning if we’re good enough, if we’ll be able to make it on our own. Uncertainty is terrifying, especially when we’ve been conditioned to answer all the questions and always have a plan. But we often fail to recognize how beautiful uncertainty can be. This next phase of our lives may be full of surprises, but those surprises have the potential to change the trajectory of our career or our lives. We simply don’t know what the future holds, and it’s an exercise in futility trying to pretend that we do.
Instead of feeling overwhelmed by my anxiety, I’m trying to embrace the uncertainty. I have no idea what I’ll be doing in six months, and that terrifies me. But I’m trying to trust in myself, and remember that I’m resilient and I’m capable. We often forget about the internal strengths we have, forget about all the times we’ve bounced back from tough situations, forget about all of the skills we’ve been developing as students over the years. I think the conversation needs to change—instead of concerning ourselves with what everyone’s doing next, we should be reminding each other that it’s okay to be uncertain and to not have a plan, because we’re strong enough to handle whatever may be coming. These next few months, I know I’ll be getting the “what’s next” question more times than I would like—but this time I’ll be honest in my answer: “I don’t know, but I do know that I’m going to be okay.”