WHAT'S NEXT?

Ever since graduation, everyone keeps asking the same question, what’s next? What are you going to do? Do you plan to work in the city? These are the bombardments that face most of us. The young graduate has not yet enjoyed the feeling of graduation, now left anxious about the next step. The questions keep echoing nonstop.

The young one stumbles into facing reality. It is like jumping into a cold shower when the cold water hits your body so rapidly that your whole body feels in shock. We want to put our arms in first, then our legs, then our hair, and finally in, but reality doesn’t have patience. It hits you so hard, like the cold shower, your whole body wakes up to the harsh reality of life. The outside world is in a big rush to get somewhere that we still don’t know where, but it wants us to join the race.

In the days after graduation, we get into a state of calm and silence. We have been so out of touch with ourselves that it feels so foreign. The earlier questions echo much louder as we are left with ourselves. Our brain rushes to be occupied, moving from a state of silence to a state of chaos; the chaos is more of a destruction from the deep inner voices. We finally move into something without fully thinking it through, a sad reality for many.

We were surrounded by peers but were suddenly left alone. The loneliness keeps growing in us and haunts us into making decisions that are far from adequate. The young and eager graduate is now forced into following the crowd and running after the thing that everyone is running after. The rat race begins without even knowing there is a race.

I keep asking myself if I should be worried about the worries the world tries to push on me. It magnifies doubts that are insignificant and piles them up. It forces us to follow and conform to the norm. I am not downgrading the importance of these questions but are they as important as everyone asks so much of? The questions should provoke curiosity, not anxiety. The many paths in front of us should be considered an adventure. Who says we must get it on the first try? Let us keep getting it wrong until we get it right.

Life is an adventure. The many avenues of life will be crammed with struggles and lessons adjacent to pleasure and thrills. We have a life not because of the absence of obstacles but because of them. The hindrances are the ways that lead us into the open fields of worthy pursuits.

The world shouts to us to dampen the internal voices that guide our path. The more we lessen the outside noise and listen to the inside, the more we are at luck with finding what is for us.

So, graduates, who are at a similar fate as mine, embrace the obscurity of the time. Don’t be anxious about the “what is next” question but take advantage of it to pursue the right path. The questions should help us take the time to listen to what we want. The time we have to ourselves should be used to know us better. We have been pushed to where we are by the pressure of the many forces that act on us but from now on, let us silence the noise and listen inside. Pursue the voice that cries from the inside, not the acceptance of the outside.

     Be all you can be. ✌  

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