What Lists About Millennials Are Forgetting

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No more papers, no more exams, no more late night coffee-induced moments of insane and stressful hilarity (cue Alice Cooper’s ‘School’s Out’). Don’t think for a second I didn’t have the urge to toss all my papers in the air out of reckless abandon, throw up the deuces and be done like in every single high school movie ever while walking out of my final class.

I wanted to. I almost did. (I didn’t).

So that’s it, huh? I have what, 60(ish) years of life left and the proverbial towel has been thrown in. My formal education is donezo. Saying graduate school is expensive can be classified under “understatement of the century” so for all intents and purposes right now, school’s out forever.

Deep down, though, something about that just doesn’t settle with me. My education can’t be over just because I walked across a stage. Right?

Yes, experience is knowledge and 60 years of experience is a whole lot of potential knowledge to cram into your brain that’s been recently pan-fried by a mix of just graduating and intense cutthroat job hunting. But let’s be real, unless you plan on backpacking planet earth or carpe diem-ing the crap out of every single second of the rest of your life, you’re pretty much banking on the fact your 8-hour work day in front of a computer is going to teach you something about yourself that you didn’t already know.

Sure, working can teach you the things your parents always bugged you about when you were half-listening, downing a bag of Cheetos and simultaneously creeping Twitter and renewing your Netflix subscription (very important things). You will undoubtedly learn financial responsibility, Excel spreadsheets and the importance of being 10 minutes early at work. It’s inescapable. However, there’s definitely a limit to how much self-fulfillment you can get from calculating budget cuts and, like, ordering paper for the office printer.  

So where do you find this magical self-worth, self-fulfillment, self-everything that we’re speaking of? It’s one of the first things we learned how to do in school. You’re doing it right now. Reading.

Remember all of the times in college when your professor asked your half-asleep class if they completed the required readings and he or she was met with a painful-to-endure silence because, “When will I EVER need this in real life?” Yeah, that never has to happen again. Because now, as a post-grad pseudo-adult, you pick what you read.

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Read what you like. Read from credible sources. Read the New York Times and the Boston Globe and Time Magazine. And by no means do you have to read front page, hard-hitting, I’m-super-confused-about-what’s-happening-right-now, stories. You like sports? By all means, flip to that. Art? Same. It doesn’t matter what you’re reading, as long as you are.

Classic literature a bit heavy for your morning commute? I won’t judge. Pick up Tina Fey’s “Bossypants” for some dry humor or whatever you’re feeling that day. Read what’s reasonable for you. Five pages a day? Do it. And when you finish that book you’ll feel an indescribable satisfaction that I promise you won’t get from finishing all seven seasons of “True Blood” on HBO GO.

When you read something that resonates with you, when someone writes down something from your subconsciousness that you come across while reading, it’s validating and fulfilling. Not in a “woe is me” kind of way, but in a “wow, this author gets it, too” place of understanding. Why not experience that everyday?

So I say to you, recent post-grads, your education is in your own hands now, to shape it into whatever you want. If you want to keep going, it’s on you. Take the 10 minutes and research something you’ve always wondered and read about it. Like I said, it doesn’t matter what it is, as long as you are.