You might be able to hold onto that feeling at your first job.
But youre still on rails.
The early lessons that come with these setbacks are no consolation.)
For many people, its not until graduation that youre finally at the full mercy of chance and timing.
Having a plan for your early adulthood, while admirable, is not the solution.
It can be part of the problem.
Your first job search may turn up nothing remotely related to the career you want.
If youre lucky enough to get financial support from your family, youll feel like a failure.
And youll have to find new ways to get back on track, or to find a new track.
Even if things go well, you might fuck it up.
By the end of the year, Id been fired.
My success at school gave me a huge ego and sense of entitlement that set me back for years.
But the right lesson is that successful people were often very unsuccessful at first.
So when you hit the wall, be ready to eat shit, anddo notthink that means failure.
Youll have to find your own way to internalize that lesson.
But I can suggest one way: a series of fantasy novels.
Theyve suddenly turned from students into adults, their authority figures helpless or vanished.
They encounter an imminent physical threatthey cant handle it.
They encounter the ennui of privileged, unchallenging life in the normal worldthey cant handle that either.
But they sacrifice; they grow; they learn to become adults.
They find a path that satisfies, even if it wasnt the one they wanted to be on.
