Family, friends, balloons, cards & (if you’re lucky) donations, phone calls from relatives you’ve not heard from in years if at all, eagerness from your uncle who thinks you’re going to pay him with a job you don’t have but expects you to materialize from your fine-print diploma, dressed aunts who are equally overly zealous about your graduation, highly inquisitive questions from all attendees on what your plans are for after graduation, a receipt for your extra cap and gown that you seem to have lost that you need for reimbursement, hypertensive traffic throughout the city, and a dwindling checking account with a nonexistent savings account that makes you wonder why commemorating the final day as a college student is so stressful.

The boundless student privileges have never tasted sweeter than on the eve of their expiration. The majority of students do not take advantage of the resources that come with a fully paid tuition. The lonely unpaid bar tab at midtown always seems like the best bet. It seems like the unwise choices along the way begin to sting ever so more when the door of opportunity closes behind you. The student bubble that protected you for most of your life is now stripped of you. Life gets to have at you now without innocent question nor a parent’s objection. You are bare and naked all at once, open to anything and everything the world has to offer. The menu includes the death penalty (the jury is less lenient with graduates), taxes (what are those?), painful insurance policies (wait, I’m not 25 yet), bills (where did my financial aid go?), 1-glass hangovers (I cooked with wine this time), and the pressures of “doing something with your life” (yea, I am still in school doesn’t work anymore) begin to pile on at holiday dinners (Thanksgiving – “Most people meet their spouses in college…”  | Christmas – “It’s been another good year for us all. God bless.” every person on the street | Easter – “What do you do? Oh, I work on hating my life less. Actually, I think I might stop coming to these things, what about you?”). It’s as if now we are supposed to figure the whole world into one shot glass. Get the job, get the spouse, have the kids, host the holiday dinners… wait, I did not sign up for that? I don’t want that job from 9-5, I don’t want to work +70 hrs/week in a corporate job, I don’t want kids as a graduation present, I wasn’t super enthused about those holiday dinners so why would I host them?

Well, you’re an adult now. Go on, you. Get.

I am still a kid at heart. I want to inspire people so that they can believe and taste that success does not require the suffering that society writes in the media. My startup is on the rocks, and we may end up closing, but I’ll get back up again because I love what I do. Maybe I’ll die poor with my startups that never went anywhere, but I’m determined to do it my way.