Seeing high school students graduate makes me feel all sorts of emotions. It makes me happy to see people I knew get older and become young adults, but then I begin to get nostalgic and it makes me really think about my current situation in life. Watching other people be in the same situation I was in a few years back, being out in the “real world” and full of goals, makes me wonder, have I achieved any of those goals or have I become the disaster I’ve always wanted to avoid?

We go on living life day after day, it becomes routine to go to work, go to school, take care of yourself, etc., that we forget after some time to check ourselves and see if we’re still on that path we planned to be on after high school. All anyone wants to do in high school is leave high school. We want to be independent, make money, get a car, some want to go to school, some want to just work. Whatever it is, we get so caught up in just living that most people forget what their goals once were and to continue working on them.

Now that we are seeing our old friends and family members graduate from high school, full of optimism and ready for their next steps, it is a good time to reflect on ourselves. Do we have all of that money we wanted saved up? Did we get into that program at school? How’s that job promotion going? If the answer is “still working on it” or “almost there,” then it’s OK. If your answer was “no,” then maybe it's time to reevaluate and start making some life decisions.

Having to change your current situation in order to end up where you want to be can be difficult at first, but just remember that one day you won’t have to be stressing about when your direct deposit will hit; you’ll just be stressing about how many options you have to go out to eat.