What do I do now?

That’s a question for many of us even as we finish our exams.

Suddenly, the feeling of purposelessness overwhelms us, and we realize we suddenly have… TIME! In fact, too much of it; too much for us to handle.

I suppose if you’re like most people, you do get a tinge of that sense of what I call Post Exam Withdrawal Symptom.

But the only reason we’re feeling like that is because we’ve made exams the point of our life. Instead of allowing education to be the means to an end, we’ve in fact, in all our mugging and chionging, made it the point of our lives.

That’s not exactly a good thing; it means there is no greater purpose in our lives than studying.

Now’s a great time to start thinking about what you’re going to do for the rest of your life. If you had all the time in the world like now, what would you commit your time to? What would be something you love to do? We have 4 months in summer to do it.

Don’t think: I have so much time, let me find a job, make some money and get busy.

Instead of trying to find something to get busy with again; why don’t you take the time to think about this: what do I want to do with the rest of my life?

C.S Lewis once said that if you’re going down the wrong path; the most constructive thing you can do is to start walking backwards and undo what you’ve done.

Evaluate your life and start thinking about this all-important question.

It could mean doing something you always wanted to but never had the time to; it might be starting a business, it might be pursuing a passion like cooking, dancing or singing.

The thing is, if we don’t determine the way in which we want to walk; we unconsciously allow others to decide for us. We allow society to determine our ‘purpose’ for us. We join a bank, join a firm with a job that we have totally no interest in: You know what, I don’t really care if the stock price of this company is at $41.25 or $36.50. and then we wonder why life is so aimless.

It’s aimless not because of the firm, it’s only aimless because we were aimless to begin with. We didn’t know what to do with the rest of our lives and we allow SMU, we allow our parents, our peers decide that for us.

We must have a sense of urgency to decide what’s going to happen to our lives post graduation, because it is the beginning of the rest of our lives.

We’re kind of coming to a fork in our lives. And the path that we choose could very well determine the rest of our lives.

It could be a life of deep meaning, where every at work is such an enjoyment; your vocation is your vacation; because of that, you learn to balance work-family as well; you have time to rich relationships with your loved ones. You could come home to an atmosphere of love; your kids love and respect you as a great dad/mom. Your spouse and you have a truly beautiful marriage. Your work colleagues love and respect you as a leader because of your great passion at work and your concern for their well being. You become someone notable because of your achievements in your realm.

Or it could be; you hate your work; you look forward only to Fridays, hate your Sunday nights because it’s time to go back to the office; you reach home everyday drained, tired and burnt out; you find that you have little to give to your spouse and kids. Instead of engaging them, you retreat to the TV and the papers. Because of that, you have a bad relationship with your family. Your kids soon grow apart from you because you don’t have time for them. Because you never really liked what you do, you never really do anything notable; to get ahead, you might try even office politics, a lot of pretense (your boss tells you about the drop in stock price, and you fake a frown to try to look genuinely concerned) … and so the typical story goes.

It might seem a little weird to link family and work; but it’s really all related, the bottom line is that we really either live a life of passion, or a life filled with obligations. We just can’t decide to be passionate in one area, and shut down our hearts totally in another.

And it’s a big choice: what we choose to do with the 10-11 hours/day for the rest of our lives.

I guess this means much more significance to me and my batch than to most readers here, since we graduating; but do consider it. Your Post Exam Withdrawal Symptom is THAT serious.

Take a month off if you have to; to think about it: Don’t waste the rest of your life away. Live it well. Live it beautifully.