Don’t Know What You’re Doing After Graduation? Good.ნიმუში

Why is it good you don’t know what you’re doing after graduation?

Because not knowing “what you’re doing next” means you can actively wait.

It’s not bad to make goals. Thinking ahead, imagining what’s next, making a plan, trying to pull it off—these are things we need to do. And none of these are incompatible with waiting.

Waiting doesn’t mean passivity. The kind of waiting we’re talking about, a waiting that seeks discernment, isn’t something you’re stuck in but something you choose. It’s willful. It’s attentive. And, in fact, it’s hard work. It’s the kind of struggle that comes with the question, What is the Lord asking of me? To ask this, genuinely, and to listen patiently, is quite difficult.

Wisdom is required here. Not making plans, standing still, and not stepping out onto the path might be imprudent or even sinful. It might be a way of evading responsibility or indulging in apathy. Some people take a “gap year” to pray, seek counsel, and open themselves to God’s leading; others take it to extend the college lifestyle for another year (or two, or three). One is clearly better than the other.

Waiting can also be a way of focusing on the present. My friend Ben puts it this way: “We all have vocations right now, and I would argue that practicing our present vocations is actually more important than deciding on our future vocations.” Or as a spiritual director in the Ignatian tradition puts it, “Discernment is an active prayer process in which we look for where God is working in me, in others, and in the world, and we seek to do what God is doing with Him.” Instead of starting with me and my future—“What should I be up to next?”—what if I started with the question, “What is God up to now?” Asking the second question might be the best way to find an answer to the first.

Discernment isn’t something we figure out before getting started. Often, we find answers while on the road. We wake into a new day, walk out our front door, and decide which way to turn. We make plans, and we pursue them. We ask God to guide our steps—and we keep asking while we’re taking them.