Rebirth

Stop.

Close your eyes. Take a huge inhale through your nose, pause, and then exhale, letting your shoulders and chest fall with the breath.

Pause, then relax. Let the silence speak.

Now, open your eyes.

See the couch in the living room? The bed in the bedroom? The plate in the kitchen cabinet?

For the first time in your life, they’re yours.

Congratulations!

You’ve graduated and have found yourself a job in a new, unfamiliar place. Maybe you’re staying close to home or in your college town, but you’re moving into a new apartment. Or maybe you’re continuing your education, but somewhere else. In some way over the coming months, you will start fresh. You will be re-born. You don’t get many chances to do that over the course of a lifetime.

Many of you have already made the transition. Some of you have a little more time to wait. But sooner or later, you will arrive in the position I found myself in almost a year ago.

After the stress of the first week of my new life subsided, I remember waking up one sunny August morning in Connecticut. I gazed out my window, past the surrounding apartments and focused my eyes in on the tree-covered mountains I seem to find everywhere I go. I thought back to my summer in Cooperstown, N.Y. a few years ago,, the first of several cloud-nine experiences of my life. I recalled the ensuing fall and the rolling hills of Scotland, the best four-month period of my collegiate career. I remembered upstate New York and the serenity of its picturesque autumns.

An overwhelming feeling of pride consumed me as I suddenly realized that I created this new life. Me, and no one else.

Certainly, I received help from countless teachers, parents, coaches, friends and family members along the way. I wouldn’t be half the person I am today without them. People come and go through life’s revolving saloon door, while I remain the only constant.

The same goes for you. I know you remember the naysayers, those who doubted you’d get to this point. You remember the Thanksgiving conversations of yesteryear, when nagging grandparents criticized your uncertainty regarding the future.

Today, you are validated. You needn’t answer to anyone now. Your decisions are your decisions. Your money is your money and now it’s your job to support yourself. Everything you own is rightfully yours, and you don’t owe anyone a dime for it.

You’re free.

On the flip side, no one can bail you out now. No more excuses. No more blaming your transgressions on naivete and youth. I’ve already tried that--it doesn’t fly. The real world is more merciless than your college campuses and summer jobs and households were. You will make mistakes. You will fail. The burden is placed squarely upon your shoulders--not your parents’ or professors’--to pick yourself back up.

But this newfound agency is something to cherish. Appreciate it, for you now have arrived at a time you knew would eventually come around, but didn’t expect to happen this fast.

Don’t run from it, embrace it.

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