Take a moment to breathe. You probably have a thousand things on your plate, which you willingly put there because you’ve refined your time management skills after years of practice, but may be stressed nonetheless. But you’re stressed because you genuinely care about all of the things on your extensive to-do list, and you want to do things well. When you’re a high achiever in high school, that work can sometimes earn post-graduate opportunities, but almost always receives celebration at the time of graduation.
As a previous high achieving high schooler myself, I lost count of the amount of times I was told I would go on to do great things or how much I would achieve post my graduation. While I appreciated their sentiments and was grateful for how much faith they had in me during the spring of my senior year, the fall semester of my freshman year in college brought a very different feeling. I was struggling to adjust to a not only a new academic atmosphere, but an entirely new place as well. I felt I wasn’t doing any of the things those people had told me a few months ago, that I would only continue to flourish outside of high school. Instead, I only felt like I was struggling, and barely keeping everything together. I felt like I would have disappointed all of those people who had so much faith in me.
The truth is: no matter what you choose to do after high school, whether it be college, work, or a gap year, life might disorient you, and that’s okay. The only pressure being placed on you to change the world the moment you graduate from high school is being placed there by yourself. Of course you want to change the world, but that goal doesn’t need a deadline. It just needs you to care enough about changing the world to try to do something about it. For now, keep doing the thousands of things you’re involved them if you really care about all those things. When graduation season comes, be gracious to the people who believe in you enough to say something about it. And when you are taking on the “real world” or post-grad, take things one day at a time.