There's an easy sort of mindset to fall into when it comes to post-grad confusion, the need for success, and not truly knowing what you are. It's the lingering feeling that you obviously want to be happy and go after everything you want... but then begin to ask yourself if you really deserve it.

Post-Grad Depression

After some recent introspection and conversations with friends and peers that have recently graduated are getting close, or even just thinking about the next step, I realized that we all seem to know what we want, but feel as though it will not come until we've earned it.

There's nothing inherently wrong with feeling you have to earn your accomplishments. Everything we earn is a mixture of hard work and luck. Hard work brings good things into your life, and often times it's the only right of passage to our deepest desires. Working hard earns you that chance to get lucky enough to accomplish your most significant goals.

There is something wrong, however, with this universal idea that you must earn your happiness and love from others. This idea that we have to do something grander than just being our best, authentic selves in order to earn the basic pleasures of life is toxic, and frankly, just false. You are enough for the relationships that you are in. You are enough for the good things that enter into your life.

Happiness is not earned, but cherished

There is no need to question or interrogate happiness when it shows up, or to wonder if you're good enough to settle in its presence. It's there for you, and you have earned it for being just that.

My advice to all the over-achievers of our current generation reading this now: use your energy in this post-graduation season to live a little more fiercely in the present. Take a moment away from all the urgency of needing to know whether or not good things will be in your future, and accept and foster the good that lies in front of your right now.

Above all, know with no hesitation that you deserve all of the things you want. Now, go for them!