Brich: Commencing after commencement

Graduation is treated as a defining milestone, a clear transition from preparation to purpose. Yet for many graduates, including myself at one time, it feels less like arriving at a destination and more like standing at the edge of an unfamiliar road without a map. One day you are attending classes, meeting deadlines, and following a fairly structured routine. The next, you are handed a diploma, congratulated for your accomplishments, and quietly expected to know what you want to do for the next 40 years.
I always thought that expectation was unrealistic. Graduation rarely delivers that instant moment of certainty people imagine. More often, it brings a new set of questions. What kind of work will feel meaningful? What kind of life do you actually want? What happens if the path you choose now turns out not to fit later?
Most graduates do not have those answers yet, even if they appear confident on the surface. 
I don’t think uncertainty is unusual at graduation, but probably the most common experience, even if few people admit it publicly. At 18 or 22 years old, most people are still trying to understand themselves. Sometimes at 40, or 50 or 60, they still don’t know. They are discovering what motivates them, what drains them, what kind of environment suits them, and what they actually value once grades and deadlines are removed from the equation.
There is no due date on that process, and for some, it can take a bit more time.
The pressure surrounding graduation starts early. Children are asked from an early age what they want to be when they grow up, as though adulthood is a single fixed destination waiting to be selected. In childhood, the question feels imaginative and harmless. You can say astronaut, veterinarian, or professional athlete without anyone questioning it.
Later, though, the question changes tone. By high school, students are expected to choose majors, career tracks, and future goals while still trying to figure out who they are. By graduation day, the question evolves into something much larger: “What are you doing with your life?” It is usually asked with good intentions, but it can feel overwhelming when there is no clear answer.
The assumption behind the question is that adulthood begins with certainty. If you do not have a carefully outlined plan, it can seem as though you are already behind.
The reality is that very few lives unfold in straight, predictable lines. Many people change jobs repeatedly throughout the years. Some discover interests they never expected. Others realize the field they studied is not the field they ultimately want to remain in. Some return to school years later. Others build careers from opportunities they never could have predicted while sitting in graduation robes listening to inspirational speeches about the future.
Life rarely follows the neat timeline people expect.
What matters more than having a perfect long-term plan is the willingness to begin somewhere. The first step after graduation is rarely a final destination. More often, it is a starting point that teaches useful lessons about what fits and what does not. Some decisions will confirm interest. Others may take you in an entire different direction.  Both outcomes are valuable.
I think there is also something healthy about admitting uncertainty instead of pretending certainty exists where it does not. Society tends to reward polished answers, because five-year plans sound impressive and confidence photographs well. But many meaningful decisions are not made all at once. They develop gradually through experience, mistakes, adjustments, and time.
And time matters more than people realize.
Unless you have a crystal ball, forty years in the future is a long time for anyone to predict. The world itself changes too quickly for most plans to remain untouched. Entire industries appear and disappear within a decade. Technology reshapes workplaces constantly. Priorities shift as people grow older. And most importantly, the version of success imagined at 22 often looks very different by 35 or 50.
That is why flexibility may be more valuable than certainty. There is a tendency to think of graduation as the moment when life’s major decisions must finally be settled. In reality, graduation is simply the end of one structured chapter and the beginning of a less structured one. The learning does not stop when formal education ends. It simply changes form. Instead of learning through assignments and exams, people begin learning through experience, responsibility, relationships, disappointments, opportunities, and ordinary daily life.
And often, clarity takes its own sweet time to arrive.
Many graduates feel pressure to discover a single passion that will define their entire future. But for most people, meaning is not uncovered in one dramatic moment. It is built gradually through work that feels worthwhile, relationships that matter, and routines that become sustainable over time.
That process doesn’t need to be rushed simply because a diploma has been handed over.
There is no requirement to have everything figured out immediately after graduation. Most people are building their futures one uncertain step at a time. Some are simply more comfortable disguising the uncertainty than others. The important thing is not having every answer, but to be willing to move forward without all of them.
Start somewhere. Take opportunities that seem worthwhile. Learn what works and what does not. Change direction when necessary. Allow experience to shape perspective instead of assuming every decision must last forever.
Because in the end, graduation is not really about knowing exactly who you are or what you will do for the next 40 years. It is about reaching the point where you just start finding out.
So if you are graduating (or if you graduated years ago) and do not know what you want to do for the next four or five decades, congratulations. You are in excellent company. You are not behind. You are not broken. You are at the beginning of a story that has not decided what it wants to be yet.
And that is exactly how most of our stories started.