What if I don’t get a job after graduation? What if I end up living with my parents forever? What if I never get married?
Once you start, there seems to be no end. At least up to junior year, we had the excuse of, “We’re still young. We still have plenty of time,” whenever we felt doubts about our future careers. Now, with the prospect of graduation, the future seems just as, or even more, obscure.
Some students have it all figured it out. Some have had the same goal, the same major, since entering college. Some even have a job waiting for them after graduation, while others don’t.
There are many graduating seniors that dread the coming of May and are drowning in their anxieties. Many feel incompetent and amateurish because they still haven’t figured out what their calling is in life, unlike some of their peers. When did students become ‘failures’ for merely not knowing? When did these expectations start determining our self-worth?
Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.”
We’ve heard this verse countless of times in Sunday school, yet we sometimes forget it when we need it the most. We’re not on this journey alone and it’s far from the end. This is only the beginning.
In Matthew 25:1, Jesus says, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?”
He will provide. This doesn’t mean you can sit back and relax in your recliner, though. Again, the journey is far from over.
Oftentimes, we couple success with wealth. We stress that we won’t be financially stable enough individually and for our families. We look past what we’re truly passionate about for that miserable job with the larger paycheck. Sure, it’d be nice to have an idea of what our future will look like, but maybe it’s a good thing that we don’t know, so we can venture out to find what truly makes us happy. Shouldn’t there be more to life than landing a job for the sake of having a job?
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you,” Jesus said in Matthew 7:7.
Pray and work hard. Stop stressing about the ambiguities of the future. Some of you seniors might be anxious because you know you haven’t been giving it your all. You know you need to do that extra research for your studies, for your interviews, but you’ll “worry about it later” and push it off for another day. Eventually, you won’t have another day.
Proverbs 13:4 says, “ The soul of a lazy man desires, and has nothing; but the soul of the diligent shall be made rich.”
Don’t be lazy. Research your options, get connected and build-up your resume.
Sarah Pyo is a senior journalism major from Chicago. She is the web & social media editor for the Lariat.
