The tassel's worth the hassle!

Graduation. Finishing college... Becoming an adult. Starting my career, shaping my life. This is a weird time, a time of transitions, a time of uncertainties, doubts, fears and opportunities. Everyone always tells you, "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." But what if I don't know what that means? I haven't imagined my life past college. My life, until this point, has been school. Work hard in high school to get into a good college. Work hard in college to get an internship and graduate with job opportunities.

I have been working hard my whole life to get to this point, and now that it is approaching, I feel lost and adrift. What do I do now? What are my goals? What do I work for now? Just to move up some corporate ladder, move to the suburbs and start a family. ZZZZZzzzz. Does that sound boring and limiting to anyone else?

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both,
And be one traveler, long I stood,
And looked down one as far as I could,
To where it bent in the undergrowth,

As I look at my life, post-graduation, I can see many possible paths, choices I will make that will shape my life. I can see myself falling easily into the corporate world where you work to get ahead financially, measure success by the money you are earning or the number of promotions you've gotten, and falling into the lifestyle my parents had, and have always wanted me to have.

OR, I can see me dreading that, avoiding that like the plague. Running away from "responsibilities" and conventional opportunities. Starting fresh, starting somewhere new.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

But I have chosen one path. Starting at a company, as planned, and going the conventional route. Maybe I will save the adventures for another day, but I doubt I will ever act. It only gets harder, as you get older, with more responsibilities, and more people that depend on you, to break away and try to live the life you've always wanted.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence;
Two roads diverged in a wood and I-
Took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I just hope that when I look back one day (unlike in the poem), I can look back and say that I took the path most traveled by, and it has made ALL the difference.