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NEtikiman
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22 Apr 2013, 1:48 pm

Hi Forum!
So, I'm not entirely sure if this is the right forum for this entry, but it is certainly tied to school (for me, at least).
I'm about to finish a two-year graduate program and I just started freaking out about it. I have a job and housing and all of those necessities lined up, but there are some historic anxieties that I'm working through.
The last time I graduated (from undergrad), I went to great lengths to change everything about myself. I accepted a job far from home (with no support system around), broke up with a long-term girlfriend and turned myself into, for lack of a better term, an uber hippie. I went through a similar transformation when I graduated high school (Hawaiian-shirt- and colored glasses-wearing non-conformist -> college hipster) middle school to high school (alien-loving geek -> grungy Nirvana fan) and even elementary school to middle school (awkward kid -> awkward goth... kid)
Luckily, my sense of self is far more in tact than it was 7 years ago (my last graduation), but I now feel an urge to reinvent myself again. With a wedding on the horizon too, I feel like there's a lot that's going to be changing and a lot more I would give up in the process...
Does anyone else get these feelings?
How do other people deal with these issues?


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lotuspuppy
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22 Apr 2013, 3:01 pm

I understand completely what you mean. I have changed so much since my two years that I have graduated college, but it took me a very long time to accept those changes. I was prone to viewing myself as a failure for a very long time. It just turned out that the things I thought I was once interested in are not appealing to me anymore.

I am off to grad school in a bit, and I expect change again. For instance, I am a lifelong Northerner, but I'm going to school in a major Southern city. I am actually delighted how much I like the South, and expect Southern culture will change me. I also plan to start online dating, which I have never done before. My studies will ressurrect some long dormant traits, like my extreme workaholism (which I never really did in my career, funny enough). Then again, maybe I will become slacker dude. It is hard to say with certainty, but I have learned not to oppose changes in myself. I am scared s**tless about what may happen, but I control that to observe the changing environment around me.

I am learning those that are happiest in life are those that can just go with the flow. Coming from an Italian American family of blue collar entrepreneurs, I interpreted "going with the flow" as an acceptance of defeat. It's not. It's just playing the hand you are dealt. It is fine to worry about changes, and I am glad you see them as an opportunity of sorts.