|
I fear life after college so much that I cry at the very thought of it. Is there any point to life after college? Any point at all?
I love life so much when I'm at college, I almost feel like it's too good to be true. At home, I barely have any friends and nothing to do. Here, I have THE most perfect, amazing friends, I'm studying the things I love and doing well in them, my apartment is beautiful, I get to party every weekend and love it, I'm starting to become prettier, etc. I've gone from hating my life at home to living a life at school that I wouldn't change any part of. I'm TERRIFIED that I will lose this happiness once I graduate this spring. The thought of losing all this is literally heartbreaking. I cry every time I think about it. My senior year so far has been perfect. With each passing day though, I panic at the fact that it's one day closer to the end. Part of me feels like life is just downhill from age 21. I'm so happy I feel like it can't get better than this. Getting older is portrayed as such a bad thing and it's making me worried. At home, my life is gray and here it is in HD color. I cannot bear the thought of losing all these friends and amazing people and activities. Tell there's life after college. Tell me I can still be happy once this dreamlike experience is over. Is it enjoyable to work and support yourself? Stories of your personal experiences would help. Also, how can I work on living in the moment, rather than always in anticipation?
[ ]
Want to answer more questions in the Health & Fitness category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Mental health?
First of all relax and stop being fearful of tomorrow. What you are experiencing at the moment is perfectly normal for you are about to fully enter the adult world.
Some of the friends you have made at college will remain life long friends. You will make new friends wherever life takes you. Your future apartment(s) and homes will always be beautiful because they will be yours and you will decorate them to please you. You will still party but maybe not so hard or so often once you leave college for you won't need to do so to relieve the stress you are under.
Partying is a way of stress relief as well as fun. Once you leave college and are working you may want to experience other ways of relaxing and enjoying the company of other people. What is happening by this is called the continuing of the maturing process. Even at my advanced age as I settle into my retirement years I continue to mature and my values change.
We continue to mature and our vales continue to change right up to the day we die. I will admit there are some people that get stuck at a certain point in life. Those people I believe miss out on a lot in life. For my generation it is those people who have never left the 60's. The 60's was a great period of time but it's over and most of us have matured and moved on.
I would say for right now you should be focusing on three things:
1. Completing you final year of college.
2. Preparing to enter the work force. More on this below.
3. Just as important as 1 and 2 is to enjoy to the fullest your final year of college but not to the extent that you school work suffers.
As for "Preparing to enter the work force." You mentions something about returning home. With proper preparation nothing says you have to return home or live with your parents if you do return to where your parents live.
You should be spending time now looking for employment in the career field you have been studying for or a related field to it. If you spent any summers interning you start by sending resume's to those company's asking for a job.
May colleges hold job fairs where recruiters from different employers come to campus to interview and hire. You should plan on attending those job fairs. Of course there may be companies out there that you would want to work for. Send these companies a resume as well.
If you have never written a resume or a letter to a company ask for help at the college job office. Employers understand that college students do not have much of a work history. What we look for then is your academic history. What classes you took in high school and college. Any extra curricular activities you may have participated in. You would of course list any internships you had and your summer or part time employment.
In your cover letter you should be brief as to the type of position you want and why you are looking to work for them. The date of graduation and when you will be available to start work.
IF you start doing this now you will be better prepared to leave college and smoothly transition into the next phase of your life. I found out long ago that life is less scary if you have goals and a plan.
Goals and planning are a road map that you follow. You may as you follow your plan decide to take a detour to see if another road is more interesting. This is fine this is what life is all about. As long as you have a goal to obtain and a plan to get there you will be find.
My motto that has stood me well is this. "The only person that I have to be better than tomorrow is the person I am today." Think about it and your more than welcome to borrow my motto.
]
Face it, human beings hate change. In fact they fear change, a fear of exposing something, a fear of failing, etc... so we try to avoid it.
Have you ever given much thought to the word "Happiness". You need to know what it is before you worry about losing it or not.
Hap in the dictionary is listed as
1. one's luck or lot.
2. an occurrence, happening, or accident
Its also part of happening: Something that takes place. or
happenstance: a circumstance that is due to chance
All of this is based on what is going on around you. Some things in life you have control over, other things you do not. If you feel good only based on what on going on externally in your life, then it is easy to lose happiness, almost guaranteed you will lose it at some point in life, sooner or later.
What cant be lost or changed is JOY. Joy is generated from the inside of you, internally, from your mind set, your thoughts your heart, a thankfulness and gratefulness for the simple things or taken for granted things that some people live without. An accident can wipe out things you never have to think about, like no longer having legs to walk, sight, etc. People in todays world are always rushing, goal oriented and have forgotten how to enjoy simple things. When is the last time You spent 2 or 3 minutes really looking at the detail of a flower, difference in petals and stamen, or spent 5 minutes watching a squirrel go about its daily excursions, studied the dew on a spiders web, these are things I could not do any longer if I lost my sight. Imagine losing your ability to smell and along with it, goes sense of taste. That happened for a short while during an extremely bad sinus infection. I could not taste food so I had no desire to eat and had to force myself. It is a wonderful privilege to be able to taste the subtle differences in food. I hope you're catching my train of thought. I don't know what the problem is at home that you fear...perhaps your parents have no goals, are boring, have let their health go and seem to be a couple old people who have no life. Hey, thats their choice. You don't have to be like them or anyone else. The majority of humans follow the crowd, are easily herded like animals and don't have any sense of how to follow the beat of their own drum, do their own thing which may differ from what everyone else is doing. You didn't say what you were in college for. Perhaps you feel it may be hard to find a job with your degree?
I do not understand why you believe you can't have friends at home or in your home town. You may not see the college friends if college was far from home. What interests or hobbies do you have? Go on line to Meet up.com for your city. Look up whatever you can think of. I have seen groups that meet once a week at a coffee house to play board games and drink coffee, another was young moms with babys in strollers who would meet at Jamba juice first and then go walk together. And then again, under new age, you can find yoga groups, meditation, those with interest in natural health and so on. Anything you can think of is likely there. Spend time getting to form friendships with people who have things in common with you. While you are looking for work, spend some time doing volunteer work. Its a wonderful way to be of some use to the community and begin to get a better perspective of what life is like for other people, it matures you in a way college and its buddies and parties cannot. Find a need that isn't being met in your community and start a simple program to help. I remember reading a story of an ordinary person who learned that a young high- schooler teen girl she knew was going to prom but family could not afford a dress. IN this economy its becoming even more an issue. She began to collect prom dresses from 2nd hand stores, advertised asking for donations, got some space somewhere for free to stock all the dresses and teen girls could come there before prom to borrow a dress and return it. Imagine the joy to see a young girls face when she sees herself in the mirror and realizes she is going to prom looking like and feeling like a princess. And its a simple thing. To find meaning in life, stop worrying about yourself and look to see what you can do for others. When it comes to finding a partner, a mate for life...find someone exactly like that, who takes the same attitude with you, where its all about what he can do for you, how he can love and support you...etc....
Growing older is wonderful. I am a grandmother now. At 55 I am thin, in great health, letting my long hair go silver naturally and I am astounded at how many men young and old still hit on me, even though I am married. You dont have to worry about looks, all the stages of life are great. Although I liked the age 30 best and no longer look like that, I am still happy with how I look.
I love getting to experience the other perspective, how my mom must have felt when I presented her with her first grandchild. My oldest daughter did the same for me. Getting older is great because you have some life experience so if you pay attention and correct certain things, you make less mistakes. With age, we become more self assured, more willing to try new things, more willing to just go for the adventure of it, and a better judge of character. Wont find me with any so called friends who would talk behind my back. With age, you lose your fear of what others may think, you will speak your mind, but with tact and grace and without any accusations towards anyone. Its wonderful. You can experience that right now, 5 years from now you;ll have 5 more years life experience...
theres a young gal on the advice column cant remember if 18 or 20 but she does lots of volunteer work and its helped to shape her life in a good way. As a result, she is maturing much quicker than some of her peers. And she is able to astound me with the great advice I see her post. You have nothing to fear hon, but oh so much to gain. Remember, change feels scary, but its cus your mind is over thinking it all. Just relax and start doing more than thinking and worrying.
]
More Questions: |