Next (adjective) 1. immediately following in
time, order, or importance.
--Random House Dictionary
“What’s
next?” It’s graduation season as millions of young women and men celebrate the
end of one part of their young lives. The end…of high school, trade school,
college, graduate school. It is absolutely
a time for joy at accomplishing the goal of finally acquiring an education, a
degree, just getting to the finish line.
YOU DID IT! I’m a softy and so I cannot
watch a graduation ceremony without getting teary, moved by the truth that these
young souls now stand on the edge of so much possibility, so much
potential. It is always an exciting time
to be a new graduate.
And yet
it’s tempting for “elders” like me to romanticize those days following
graduation. It’s been almost 25 years since I picked up my grad school diploma
and I’d like to remember that I strode into my future with confidence and a clear
direction to the place called “the rest of my life” but the truth? I was
anxious, nervous, and unsure about just what was “next”. Post graduation so many well meaning folks
badgering me with just one question: “So John, just what are you going to do
with the rest of your life? What’s next?”
What was
to come “next”? What I was supposed to
do “next”? Whom I was supposed to become
“next” in my unfolding human life? “Next”—the
place we all have yet to arrive. The story not quite written to its completion.
Tomorrow, the future, or in the words of
William Shakespeare’s character Hamlet, “the undiscovered country.” What is “next” and just how are we humans
supposed to figure that out?
As a
person of faith the one piece of advice I’d offer 2012 graduates is this. Trust
that the God who created you has also planted within you a unique gift, a
passion, a talent, a call, a vocation, work, one “thing” wholly your own,
exactly what you are supposed to do next and who you are made to be next. So now your job post classroom, and for the
rest of your life in fact, is to figure out just what that “work” is and when
you do find it (and you will) dive right into it with all your heart, soul and
mind.
Yes, this
task is so much easier said than done. I’m blessed in my life to know and love
many twenty something folks. I see that often
the hardest challenge they face is to figure out just what their “one thing” is,
their “next”. But the gift of a life
given to us by God is also a challenge: to grow up and into our one of a kind
“next” and to take responsibility for that journey of self-discovery alone.
Parents cannot do this for us, tell us whom
we are made to be, not peers or spouses, teachers or coaches or any one else
either. It is up to us finally. But here’s a hint. You’ll know “it” when you discover “it”. As the writer Fredrick Buechner said: “Vocation
happens when our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.” And when that serendipitous transformation
occurs, when we find or stumble upon or embrace our life’s vocation, it is
really a miracle, simply amazing. “So
this is why I was put on this earth!”
What’s
next? We may be made by God for a specific job or a career, some lifelong
profession which dovetails perfectly with what we love to do. Some of us were just made to be a doctor or
an engineer or a carpenter or minister or an auto mechanic or a teacher. It may be a hobby or an after work pursuit,
life on the weekends and at night writing a novel, acting on stage, singing
with passion, playing a sport and pushing our bodies to the limit. For some a
life’s work is about being a great Mom or amazing Dad: some of us are made to
build a family and make a home with care and love.
God knows
what’s next and now it is up to every human being to answer this question too
for the rest of life. To discern what it
is that makes our hearts soar, our minds stretch, our lives meaningful, and our
spirits flourish and then to make it all our own. To do what God made us to do.
What’s
next? The answer awaits.
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