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After college, there seems to be this unwritten rule for family and friends to give you advice. The second you hold that diploma in hand, it’s like you made a deal with the world to get free advice for an undisclosed amount of time.
People you didn’t even know could give advice come out of the woodwork in droves, as if their sole reason for existing was to tell you the next thing you need to do with your life. And usually their advice is:
“You should move to [insert new location].”
“You should travel.” anywhere
“Why don’t you look in to doing [insert job position].”
“Why don’t you shower?”
“You should stay single until you are 30 years old.”
“You should get married.”
“You should have at least 10 proposals before accepting one.”
‘Why don’t you publish something?”
And you start thinking about all of these suggestions, going: “Yeah! Why don’t I move somewhere?! Yeah! Why don’t I travel and do that job! Yeah! Why don’t I publish something?!”
But then you start to look at all these things and realize, you have no clue what you actually want to do. That, yeah, you could travel, but then what? And yeah, you could move somewhere, but does it really matter what city you live in if you’re okay with where you are now?
Just today, I was sitting in my very own apartment, thinking about my very own decently paying job, and all the sudden I got a light bulb! No, a real light bulb. I decided to change my burnt-out hallway light. And doing that, standing on the chair and unscrewing the cover, I felt pretty adult. I felt like I had accomplished something.
And then I decided to do some laundry so that I could have that fresh, clean feeling all week long. And that felt pretty good.
The point of all this is not to say that screwing in a light bulb is anywhere near moving or traveling or becoming the princess of a small country. The point is, there isn’t some deadline on your life to compress all good experiences directly after college. You have to find what you want to do…not what will impress everyone else when you tell them what you’ve been doing.
Researching ants in Japan isn’t nearly as exciting if you don’t even like ants.
Moving to Michigan is a horrible idea if you don’t have some huge desire to move.
Changing careers isn’t nearly as satisfying if you don’t know what you want to do.
Just be open to what you want to do.
After college, it’s okay to take a little time to figure things out. It’s okay to not have some “grand” plan that will impress all your friends and neighbors. And just because you might feel pressure to take the advice of everyone you meet, taking everyone’s advice leads to being 3,000 miles away while traveling and changing careers and showering…all at once.
Just breathe.
Do the things that make you happy, regardless if they lend themselves to helping all your advice-givers relive some regret they never experienced. Large or small, I’d rather be happy doing what I wanted to do than unhappily impressive. Unless it included a $100,000 grand prize to buy my happiness back. Or a Houlihan’s gift card.
-The Leftovers
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Comments
01.12.09
I completely agree. The transition into an entirely different life setting is difficult enough to deal with.
The truth is that most college grads don't know where they will be 6 months after graduation. And that is perfectly fine. It took me over a year of working to figure out what kind of direction I was heading in and then deciding if that was the right one for me.
And as for the advice, almost two years out and I still have people giving me 'wise advice'. At times I get so sick of people telling me 'good tips', its almost like they expect me to act on it immediately. But in the end, its my life and I simply state to them what I'm going to do anyways, with confidence. :)
01.12.09
That's a good way to be.
01.13.09
Best advice I received after graduation was from my grandmother: "Do whatever you want to do. I don't care what it is because I'll be dead". While it is not the most upbeat advice, it is the most honest. At the end of the day, I'm the only one who has to live with my career or life decisions.
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