The Dilemma After the Diploma
How can we contemplate the future while enjoying our present?
As I begin my senior year, the last thing I want to think about is graduating. I’ve finally gotten back into the swing of things: I walk to class with a skip in my step, I lose my voice cheering on Gopher game days, I spend weeknights studying and chatting with my roommates. I’ve finally gotten back what I’ve missed since March of 2020. Why would I waste my time contemplating what things will be like after the “best four years of my life”? And at the same time, it’s all I can think about. Friends of parents ask, “What are your post-graduation plans?”, my roommates accept job offers as I receive job rejections, and my parents smile at me pitifully as I tell them I genuinely don’t know what my plan is.
The trope of the undecided, free-spirited young adult has been idealized in many ways. I’ve watched Friends enough to know that, after college, I can spend my days in a New York City coffeehouse with my social circle and not have to worry about the stresses of everyday life. Right? Isn’t it that easy? I almost convince myself that it is until the anxiety creeps in from the back of my mind. That’s television, I tell myself, We won’t all be Rachel Green. And even though I so badly want to be Rachel Green – a bold, self-sufficient woman with the career of her dreams – I feel as though I’m a bit more like Joey Tribianni; I dream of working in Hollywood but am afraid I’ll never be good enough, I’m constantly worrying about if I have enough money in my bank account, and all I really want to do is sit in a La-Z Boy recliner and eat pizza.
The temptation to allow ourselves to be Joeys, young and newly adrift within the adult world, contradicts the demand to be a Monica, always knowing what the next step is. These clashing lifestyles create a pressure-cooker paradox that swallows graduates and 20-somethings whole until we are spit out into a world we aren’t really prepared for. My roommates and I were in downtown Minneapolis when someone brought up that by this time next year, they’ll be living about a block away from where we were. My heart sank. It finally hit me that I had to make up my mind, like my friends had. They knew where they were going to go, what they’re going to do, who they were going to be surrounded by, and even just what they wanted. I’m gearing up to do the same thing, but with a different mindset. I’ll be thrusting myself into the void of the adult world, still embodying the maturity of a seventeen-year old. I still need multiple opinions on if my chicken is done cooking. I always call my mom to help me book plane tickets. I barely know how to straighten my hair without help. I’m not ready for the responsibility and accountability that lies outside of my collegiate bubble! I want to be an age-appropriate, socially-accepted Joey forever!
When I think of this anxiety of needing to have my entire life mapped out before me, I try to think of what it’s telling me. Is it asking me to make a decision? To decide my whole career path without knowing where I want to start? Is it intentionally weighing on me just to shame me for not knowing? As an anxious mind does, I then question all of my questions. I spin my indecisiveness in a new direction, trying to find some positivity in my stress-inducing fear. Is this pressure to be autonomous and assertive in my post-graduate career encouraging? Could it actually move me toward a place where I can explore the things I love to do and form a path that includes them? This pressure pushes me to think about who I am, what my strengths are, and what my future holds. And when I think about that with my newly-found positive spin, it’s exciting!
I think about the places I’ll be taken to, the opportunities that will arise for me, and anything else the world has in store for me. I picture the people who will change my life, my Chandler or my Phoebe, and the city we’ll meet in. There’s just as much to fear as there is to look forward to in the future. The uncertainty of not knowing what I’m doing after graduation horrifies me at times, but I need to focus on what fuels me. I can be the adult that works a 9 - 5 as well as the meandering youth that wanders aimlessly from opportunity to opportunity. I can be Rachel and Joey at the same time, or any combination of the six Friends. It’s worrisome and comforting at the same time, so I’m learning to live somewhere in the middle.
