Becoming an adult sucks. It is really hard. Graduating from college, leaving your parents’ house, managing finances, being good at your job and generally learning how to be on your own is very emotionally taxing. And then there is the task of figuring out how to lead your life on your own. I find a lot of recent college graduates subconsciously afraid of being alone, so whenever they have free time, they schedule meetings with their friends, picnics at the park, happy hours at the bar and attendance of countless parties. Six months later, they find that they have had little time with themselves to really think about what their lives now mean.

And what they mean is that there is no set course anymore. Life is now a free current (direct translation from Russian). In high school you worked hard to get into the best college. In college you worked hard to get the best job out of graduation. Now that the preparation for your life is over, you suddenly find yourself living the life that you prepared for during the last 8 years. But how do you actually live it? Is it worth going out to bars or to parties twice a week? Is it more valuable, in the grand spectrum of your life, to work 8 or 10 hours a day? Should you write a blog post or get 8 hours of sleep? Is it worth reading that really interesting article to educate yourself on a topic?

When I started working, I asked my mentor “How do I live my life now that I have a structured 9 to 5 work schedule? Where do I find the time to discover myself?” He answered: “You get really good at managing your time. And you learn to spend time on the things you actually want to be doing.” You learn to only spend time with people you actually want to spend time with. Instead of reading everything, you read only those articles and blog posts that will teach you something new and spark a new thought, resisting the urge to read everything because you are hungry for an understanding of this world.

And then you go through sad and down states. Because transitioning from college to adulthood is emotionally unstable and you will feel this emotional instability if you dare to stop and think for five minutes. And when you feel sad and scared, you might snap at your friends, the friends who will be there for you no matter what and who tolerate your post-college-transition emotional ups and downs. But you do not want to push it too far and alienate them.

So when you feel a pocket of joy amidst the emotional transition, immediately call and text your friends. Because that pocket of joy might pass in 5 minutes, but the positive call or text will last them longer. And because those happy calls remind your friends of who you really are or the person you strive to be - the best and happiest version of yourself.