When the spring semester ends, many students will graduate. Students “graduate” when they successfully complete some course of study or training. Congratulations are in order for students who have worked hard to finish their courses and earn their degrees. But to graduate is not only to be finished and done with “a thing” – it is also to move from one stage of experience to a new one. It is natural for a person to experience anxiety when they must transition to a new stage of experience for many reasons. I will discuss three of those reasons here, and I will provide some thoughts from my own experiences on how to overcome these anxieties and successfully transition to a new phase of life.
First, it is natural to be anxious when the goals or ends to pursue in his new stage of life are uncertain. Without substantive goals, it is difficult for a person to structure any plan for life, and a person is left feeling like he is adrift at sea. To overcome this obstacle, a person should think about what they value or care about. Values provide a lodestar to guide a person’s actions. If a person knows what he cares about, then he can begin to take steps to attain, engage with, or learn more about that thing. When a person takes steps to engage with or learn more about what he cares about – no matter how small or indeterminate these steps are – then he is taking meaningful action that will likely yield substantive goals which he can pursue. If a person does not know what he cares about, then simply asking the question and trying to figure out an answer constitutes the best start. For example, while studying philosophy in my undergraduate years, I was deeply interested in the virtue ethics of philosophers like Aristotle and Epictetus. I knew that I did not want to be a philosophy professor, but what does a philosophy student really do with a philosophy degree? I had no idea what I was going to do with myself after school. I thought about what was important to me and granted, my thought process was a little abstract. I cared about fortitude – mental toughness – and I wanted to challenge myself. After years of reading through Greek and Roman history and philosophy, I also knew that I deeply respected the political and military men of the Greek poleis and the Roman Republic. The idea of joining the U.S. military began as a small voice in the back of my mind, but I eventually took the leap and enlisted. It was the best decision I ever made, and I could not have made the decision without engaging with my own values.
Second, a new phase of life can force a person to abandon long-standing routines that they have become accustomed to. When a person becomes accustomed to a routine, that routine provides a source of comfort. When a person is forced to give up the things that make him feel comfortable, the resulting experience can be stress-inducing and jarring. To handle this situation, a person should do his best to create a routine for himself. This means that a person should develop some kind of schedule for himself, and fill each day or week with at least some activities that bring him satisfaction. The key here is that a person must bring some kind of order to his days and weeks. I spent a good chunk of my life in the Army, where I would wake up each day before the sun came up, shave, drink a cup of coffee, and then do physical training. That was how I started my day, every day for years. When I left the Army, I found myself in a transition phase with lots of free time. I did not have to run or go to the gym as part of my job every day, nor wake up before the sun came up. I was initially at a loss as to what to do with myself. The experience was uncomfortable because I had grown accustomed to a specific routine, and it had become natural. To overcome this difficulty, I tried to inject order into my life by incorporating a schedule into my life as a civilian. I made sure to wake up every morning by 6:30 a.m. and exercise. I set specific times to cook (which is one of my hobbies) and eat. I took parts of my old routine and things that I enjoyed and I scheduled them into my new phase of life.
Third, it is natural for a person to be anxious when they must leave behind their community and friends and cultivate new relationships. When a person enters a new phase of life, he can often feel like he must “go it alone.” This is especially true for a student who is graduating from school. Students go to class and see the same friendly faces every day, and often develop some of their closest friends in college. When students move on to a new phase of life, the loss of this social network can leave them feeling lonely and worried that they will not be able to develop the same special relationships again. There are two answers to this problem:
- A person does not necessarily lose the friends that they have made at a certain stage of their life just because they have moved to a new stage. Maintaining old friends takes some deliberate effort – the effort of actually reaching out to those friends – but it easier than ever before to stay connected through technology like video chat.
- If a person could make friends and cultivate a sense of community throughout their years at school, then they have all of the tools to do this again in a new phase of life. When I think back to my own years in college, I recall being nervous to meet new people before I started my first year. But I met new people and made friends in this phase of my life.
When I moved on to a new phase of my life in the Army, I was similarly nervous to meet new people and cultivate new relationships. But I developed a sense of community there as well. Before I began law school, I was nervous to meet new people and cultivate a new sense of community there too. But guess what? I was able to meet new people and make new friends. If you are open to it, then wherever you go, you will meet new people and have a chance to cultivate new and exciting relationships
Lack of direction or purpose in the new phase, difficulty transitioning from comfortable routines to new ones, and the loss of community and closely cultivated relationships can be the source of anxiety for anyone transitioning to a new phase of life. Focusing on personal values and using them as a guide in a new direction is helpful in countering the sense of lack of direction, inject order into your life by creating schedules to best handle the difficulty of transitioning from comfortable routines to new ones, make an effort to stay connected with old friends to avoid the anxiety and feeling of loss of a community. If a person is open to meeting new people and cultivating a new sense of community, then they will have the opportunity and knowledge to do this wherever they go. I hope that the guidance that I have provided here proves useful to the Class of 2021 in their new phases of life.