I used to dread the beginning of August. It usually signaled two things. One, it meant that another summer had come and gone. Some things got done, but not all that I wanted got accomplished. Such is the story of every summer. The other major signal is that school had finally reared its ugly head around the corner. For years, I had an aversion to the month of school, but since I will be a senior in college this coming semester, I am finally looking forward to school. It may be the end of an era, but it is finally the long imagined tomorrow that has always existed in my mind.

For the last year or so, I have been thinking about my future. Not in the "what you tell relatives or close family friends when the question comes up at a gathering sense" but in a really, "what exactly am I to do with my life after college sense."

I have come to realize that I have taken the last four years for granted. I spent a lot of time either working to make money or working to get good grades, and I never really took time to sit and think about where I was or what it was really doing for me.

For one, I consider myself incredibly lucky and blessed to be have gone through school with no debt. I have been lucky to have maintained strong relationships with old friends even as we have all grown apart and into our own people. There have been few setbacks, but my greatest fear is that for the first time in my life, I will be free to do as I would like. And while that sounds like something that everyone dreams of having, it is perhaps the most paralyzing type of freedom a person can receive.

Regardless of how my life will come to play out in the coming years, I am excited to see how it will go. College has been an amazing time and there are plenty of people I will miss as time wears on, but tomorrow has finally come. The best thing to do is to embrace the future, and not get stuck on wondering how things will turn out 20 years from now, but how things will be influenced by the day-to-day decisions.