Remember when you were a kid and someone asked what you wanted to do when you grew up? Maybe you wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer — or perhaps you said, “I want to be just like mommy and daddy.”
As a senior in college, I just got a reality check. I can finally see the finish line. For all the seniors out there, I am sure the anxiety and fear of what’s next is in full effect, and the big question is, what will we become once we’re shoved into the elusive next chapter?
For the longest time I thought I had everything together. I would get my dream job, get a nice place to live, pay all my bills and travel abroad everywhere to complete my 50-50 challenge (visit 50 countries by the time I am 50). But this summer, I questioned whether or not I am ready for what’s to come.
But my question is whether or not all these years of learning have prepared me for the “real world.” We’ve spent years hearing about this parallel universe of real world, where we’re both ourselves and not ourselves at the same time. Here’s another word for “real world”: the future. As children, adolescents and young adults, we chase after the future only to tiptoe once we reach the edge. Why do we feel so hesitant if this is what two decades of school was meant for? Why not feel secure to jump right in?
The end of my college career may be approaching, but the lessons learned in life are just beginning. The fears I see in my life today are the same as those that I felt as a child or as a teenager. I overcame those obstacles. The challenges of the past are no different than those today — they’ve just come in different scenarios.
The so-called real world comes in different stages. What we have lived in the past was the real world for that particular phase of our lives. Thinking about the past real world from my childhood, heights and darkness were two parts of that world I was afraid of and definitely didn’t want anything to do with. These fears and anxieties will always be in our lives, but just like in the past, we will learn to face them and grow from that experience.
And today, as the finish line of my college career approaches, the challenges are not any different than those I have faced in the past — I’m ready to dive into the new chapter of my life.
And for all the seniors out there, remember always to have a plan. But even when things are not working as expected, everything will fall into the right place.
