What No One Tells You About Life After College

If you are graduating this year, this episode is for you, but it's also for anybody that's in their 20s and still trying to figure it out, which is literally everybody, it should be everybody listening right now. This episode is also for you, and I think graduation speeches are for everybody. I frequently find myself listening to

graduation speeches given by some of the best people, Steve Jobs' graduation speech, Denzel Washington's, Taylor Swift's, Matthew McConaughey's. There's some really inspirational graduation speeches, and I feel like those messages just never go out of style. I feel like those words of wisdom and words of affirmation and encouragement should be things we hear all the time because they're, as I said, encouraging. They're comforting. It's good to know that

It's okay not to know what's going on right now and you're going to figure it out and that even though this is your first time on your own, like it's going to be okay. You're going to figure it out and you're going to make it happen. And even if you don't make it happen today, tomorrow, even if it feels like everything is confusing, lost, broken, you feel insecure. You don't feel confident. You don't feel like, you know, what's going on. You don't feel like you have a path or a way forward or you're in the right place right now.

and you just feel lost. Like that's how everyone's feeling. And these types of speeches and the things I hear from people in these graduation speeches that I heard at my own graduation are encouraging. Like even the speeches weren't that great at mine. Like I was also kind of drunk. I took like five fireball shooters, which was like, I don't know. Everyone was drinking. It was fun. It's graduation. Whatever. Fuck it. It's college. But I think that these types of things like

Really helped propel me forward and there are so many moments in so many days in these past Three years out of college that I've felt lost and that I felt like I don't actually know what's going on And that's a lot of what I talk about on here And then I find these videos or these speeches Like I genuinely listened to the Steve Jobs speech his graduation speech all the time. There was a there was a time

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this year where I think I listen to it every day for like a couple weeks in the morning because, I felt like I didn't know what I was doing. And in that speech, he talks about connecting the dots and that it may not make any sense right now, but at some point when you look back, it will make sense and you will connect the dots. Like he talks about, taking a class at, I forget what college it was on calligraphy.

because he was drawn to that because for some reason he was interested in fonts and just calligraphy in general. So he took an entire semester class on calligraphy and it wasn't called fonts at the time. It was called calligraphy. Sorry that I just kind of spoiled the story, but he talks about calligraphy and that he was just drawn to this thing. And at the time it made no sense and it made no sense that he was doing this and why was he taking a class on calligraphy? And then when he started to discover the computer,

His love for calligraphy and his desire for people to also experience that love became fonts. And that was mimicked by Dell and every other computer. And basically his love for calligraphy is the reason we have fonts now. And that's why fonts were discovered at the time. He obviously says that story in a much more eloquent way. But the point of that story is to say that like, it may not make any sense right now.

What you're doing may not make any sense and what you're drawn to or what you love may not make any sense. So you may push it away and you may push it down and be like, that doesn't make sense with where I'm at right now. So I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to follow the thing that I'm being called to because it doesn't make sense. Like, why would I be doing that? But connecting the dots, looking back, it all does make sense. I'll put that a speech on my social media pages on Instagram and on Tik Tok so you can watch it because he says that so much better than I just did. But

That is why I wanted to put together my own kind of graduation speech-esque. I like to do this every year. I did this last year and I did it again this year because as much as I'm talking to you at 21 or 22 years old, I'm also talking to me at 24, almost 25 now. I don't think these types of things ever change and I think it's important to always be reminded of the things I'm about to talk about.

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After college, you are going to be pulled in a thousand different directions. There are going to be so many different expectations placed on you by everybody around you and also by yourself. You can wake up one day and choose to do it all differently. Change the way you act, the way you talk to that person, your attitude, what you eat, who you hang out with, what you lift.

where you spend your time and how you spend your time. Some days you will feel like you have it all together. The date went well, the conversation with your boss went way better than you expected, you made dinner and you were proud of yourself for it. You accomplished everything on your checklist, called your mom, didn't feel anxious about the thing you said, you went outside and you took a walk, you were present and you went to bed feeling good about the day you just had.

And the next day, it could all fall apart. She ghosts you. You forgot to do the thing at work that you're responsible for, and that's your mistake. You spend all your time in your head and on your phone, ridden with anxiety and creating more of it with every second you scroll on your phone. You overthink every text you send and everything you say. You isolate yourself from your friends and your family, thinking that'll make it better.

You didn't do anything on your to-do list and you tell yourself, you know what, I'll do it tomorrow. It's fine. You push off your goals and your dreams and you go to bed wishing today was more like yesterday and wondering how it all went wrong. And now it's only Wednesday. In your twenties, you're told that this time is going to be fulfilling. The time to figure it all out, to create your life, to start deciding where you want to go and what you want to do.

what you want to make of yourself. You're told you're supposed to start saving money, but this is also the time to travel. The best time to make memories, and the only time you'll ever be as close to your friends as you once were. This is the time to go out, to live it up, to spend time surrounded by friends, go on dates, put yourself out there, go on the apps, meet people at bars, stop thinking so much, stop overthinking it all, and just live.

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while also figuring out who you are, bettering yourself, journaling, getting to know yourself, live on your own, live with roommates, spend time with your friends as much as possible, but make sure you're also spending time on your own. But why are you spending so much time on your own, and why does that make you feel lonely, and why do you now feel like a loser for it? You should go on more dates, go meet more people, go put yourself out there, but why is none of it working, and why do I not feel any more fulfilled than I did before?

You're told that this is the time and the only time, your 20s, are the time to take risks on yourself. Be bold, do the thing that you always wanted to do and go try. The time in your life where you're only responsible for yourself and no one else. You have no kids, no wife to provide for, no family. So you should take as many chances on yourself as possible. But, at the same time, you should find the job that gives you purpose and makes you excited to get up every day.

But also, don't leave that job before two years or so because that's not a good look for your resume and that's not a good look for the next job and the next recruiter and the next thing. And even if you feel like that job is sucking out your soul and your boss drives you actually insane and you're underwater in the things you're doing, you shouldn't leave for the first two years because that's not a good look. But at the same time, you're supposed to be finding your purpose and you're to be finding your reason and what drives you and what makes you feel successful.

It's crazy to think about and if you do leave that job before two years You better like the next one a lot because you sure as shit better not leave that job before two years And if you do leave that job before two years or even worse you get fired from that job You're going to link somebody that doesn't know what they want to do with their life and is inconsistent and doesn't know what's going on and God forbid Somebody doesn't know what they want to do with their life at 22 23 or 24 25 years old

I choked, my god. Also, during this time in your life, your calendar is going to be filled up with other people's requests for your time. And it's not really a request, but more so something you have to do, with meetings about things that you may not care about, with people that you don't like.

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Let me rephrase that. With meetings about things you may not care that much about with coworkers that you're supposed to like. And you have to answer all of your emails. And then you're supposed to have the energy and excitement to go work on your own dream too, to go find yourself during this time too. And go on dates and make food and eat healthy and go to the gym and call your mom. And you're supposed to know how it all works by the way when you go to the gym.

Go back to my episode, it's episode 98, it's called the ego of weightlifting, I talk about that and about the gym. And you're supposed to stay in touch with your friends and make plans with friends and schedule another date and respond to that hinge message and make time for yourself. How is it possible? It is going to feel impossible. You should stay in your job while figuring out what you wanna do. You should spend your time outside of that job applying for new ones.

Spend months getting dressed up and prepared for interviews just to get rejected over and over and over again. To end up back in the same desk chair that you were on Tuesday, anxious as hell about what your boss is about to say to you and what you have to do for the rest of the day. And maybe you start to realize that the one consistent thing in your life is inconsistency.

And maybe that's okay.

We're told rejection is redirection. So then why does it feel so bad? Why does it taste so terrible? If I'm supposed to be figuring it all out, then why does it feel like I have less figured out than I did before? And if rejection is supposed to be redirection, then why do I feel so directionless? There are some days when I feel like I am standing on the deck of a sinking ship. It feels like the people around me are trying to bring me down.

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and also pulling me in a thousand different directions while I try to simply stay afloat or at least keep my feet on the wood. There are so many days where I am just like, what the fuck am I doing? None of it makes any sense. We're fed contradicting information and a diametrically opposed roadmap for the next few years of our lives. On those days,

The days when I'm trying to figure out what the fuck I'm doing and what is going on, I try to think about the ride I'm on. It's not easy to get in the headspace when you're incredibly stressed, but I try. At work and in your career, you have to figure out how to not freak out at that coworker or at the thing you're doing, but also stay professional and keep your composure and also be smart and make a name for yourself.

stand up for yourself and your opinion and your viewpoint while also keeping the peace. You have to play nice with your coworkers, respect your boss, learn how to stand up for yourself. It is all impossible. It's not possible. And yet, we're all still doing it. And we're all here. And people have been doing it for hundreds of years. We're supposed to navigate hundreds of different expectations and constantly changing directions while also keeping a smile on your face the whole time.

This time in your life, in all of our lives, reminds me of weightlifting and the process of building muscle. As said by Google and probably chat GPT, muscle building primarily occurs through a process called a muscle, high tro per fee. It sounded really good until there. Hyper tro, hypertrophy, hype hyper. don't know. Hyper trophy. Hold on. How do you say muscle? Hi, hyper trophy.

English, where's English? I had it all together. No, hypertrophy pronunciation. Hypertrophy. Hypertrophy. Okay, let me start again. Okay. I was doing so well until there. Muscle building, as said by Google, muscle building primarily occurs through a process called muscle hypertrophy, where individual muscle fibers increase in size, not by adding new cells.

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but by increasing the amount of contractile proteins within each fiber. This is triggered by consistently challenging muscles with resistance training, leading to microscopic damage and subsequent repair with increased protein synthesis.

Stick with me. This time in your life will be filled with damage, with tears, with breaks, with moments that you don't know what the hell is going on, with moments of rejection, uncertainty, disappointment, loss, inconsistency, and yet, you're still here, and you're still building. All those moments lead to the repair. This time in your life, in your 20s, will be filled with damage, with tears, with breaks.

with moments of rejection, uncertainty, disappointment, loss, inconsistency. All of those moments lead to the repair. It's through those moments where you discover who you are, what's meant for you, where you're supposed to go, what your purpose is. It won't happen overnight, and it's not supposed to. But one day, you'll wake up

and realize that the path you're on may be the one you're happy with, even excited about. And that didn't mean that these past few years weren't fun and exciting. They absolutely were. They were some of the best times of my life. And that also doesn't mean that those past few years weren't filled with moments of doubt and insecurity. If you've listened to this podcast for 101 episodes now, you know that they were filled with doubt and insecurity. But my path this year

is starting to make a lot more sense. What I've done up until now is starting to add up a little bit more. It's all starting to look like bricks beneath my feet, guiding me toward where I'm going. Where is that? I'm not sure yet, and I don't think I need to be. But as long as I keep placing those bricks one after the other, I feel like I'm doing something right. And I know that at some point when I look forward,

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All of those bricks will make sense creating a path to where I am now. Look at the bricks behind me. That's a that's cool. I didn't do that on purpose. I promise. But at some point soon this will no longer be my background of the videos. And that'll be sad because I'm moving out soon. I'll talk about that soon. my God. I'm moving. See like another thing like it's just it's constantly in consistency. It's constantly changing like the only constant thing is change. And that's just it. Like

You don't need to be sure yet. These moments, these micro tears, are leading you in your direction. And one day, you will look around and it will all start to make a little more sense. And the next day, that might happen again. And you'll wake up excited for the day ahead and for the life you're creating. What we aren't told is that we have to find the magic in the mundane.

And I think that's one of the most important things I've learned yet. Even when you do start to figure it out and you do start to feel like your life makes a little bit more sense and you're on the right path and the road is starting to create itself under your feet. You will still have those moments where you don't know and it doesn't make sense. It's not always going to be exciting and exhilarating. There's still going to be so many moments when you're

bored or you're anxious or you feel like it's repetitive and you don't know what you want to do or what's ahead. But you push through because you know that soon enough you'll find what is meant for you. Every day isn't supposed to be magic and you aren't supposed to know what to do with every single step of the way. But you start from where you are with what you know with the tools you currently have and with what your gut is telling you to do.

And maybe that's good enough. Starting today, with where you are, with what you know.

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I don't tell you all of this to scare you or make you feel anxious for what's ahead, especially if you're graduating right now. I don't want you to hear this and think, fuck, my God, this is gonna be like the scariest next few years of my life. holy shit. I tell you all of this so that you feel less alone when these things come up. So that you know someone else is exactly where you've been before.

and someone else has stood exactly where you're standing today. That someone else has gotten through it before. And the next day was Wednesday. And he decided to wake up hopeful for what the day held for him. He chose to have a positive attitude that day because sometimes positivity is not a feeling, but a choice. In your twenties, you'll be met with conflicting feelings about everything all the time.

You'll feel like you're not doing enough, and then you'll feel like you're doing too much. You'll be happy and content with your living situation, then you'll realize it's all going to change in two months and feel really anxious about what's next. You'll be confident in your friendships, then you'll miss the times you had when you were so close to everybody before. You'll be content with where you are right now, and then you'll feel anxious about your future. Your plans will fall through. You'll get rejected.

You'll feel like you have to know everything right now. You'll feel lost. You'll feel insecure. You'll feel confident. You'll feel good. You'll feel strong. You'll change your ways a million times and reinvent yourself year after year, even if you don't realize you're doing it. Your thoughts will evolve and your feelings will change. You'll adapt, you'll grow, and you'll change.

The only constant in your 20s is change. And whether you think you are or you're not, you're ready for it. You have the tools. You just need to figure out when and how to use what. We're all equipped to figure this out as we go because people have been doing it forever. We're not original to the experience of being in our 20s. But what we do have that previous generations don't,

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is the incredibly easy ability to share our thoughts, our feelings, our advice, and our perspectives with each other. We have the opportunity to ask, to share, to say, I don't know what I'm doing. Can you please give me advice at any second of the day, at our fingertips, at all times, to admit how we're feeling, to admit that we don't know what to do, to ask for help.

anytime.

Use that to your advantage. Do yourself a favor and don't keep all of that shit bottled up. Don't do that to yourself. Ask the people in your life for their advice. Tell them how you're feeling. Ask for help, especially to all the guys listening right now. Don't shove all of that shit down because it will come up in ways that you don't want it to. The best thing I've done at any time in my life

is to ask for help, ask for advice, say, I don't know when I don't know something and ask more and more questions. Be curious about your potential and don't be afraid to say, I don't know when you don't spend as much time as you can figuring out what you like to do and what you don't like to do. Try a bunch of things, go out, make noise, have as much fun as possible and try to make time for yourself.

I know what I just said is contradicting. I know the advice I just gave you is exactly what I'm talking about. But try as hard as you can to get that time in for yourself too. During the week, even if it's only 30 minutes to an hour for yourself. You leave college and enter life after with so many different tools you've collected and gained during that time. How to handle this. What to do when this.

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what to say when this. Now it's up to you to figure out how to apply these tools to your new experiences. Using them all at the same time won't work. You'll have to figure out what works when and how much pressure to apply for each. But you already have the tools. You just have to figure out how to use them.

That is the episode. Thank you so much listening to guys said a guy's guide to what should be talked about. I'm Josh. I'm 24 years old and I'm here every single week, every single Tuesday to talk about what should be talked about for guys in their twenties. If you liked this episode, I really hope you did. Please like subscribe, give it a podcast, five stars, leave a review. That's one, two, three, four, five stars, five stars. Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate that.

If you have anything I want to talk about that should be talked about for guys in their twenties, send it to my DMs. It's at the guys at T H E G U Y S E T or to my email. It's josh at guys.com j o s h at G U Y S E T dot com or head over to guyset.com G U Y S E T dot com. And there's a form right there that says what should be talked about. You can just ask it right there. Hello. Hello. Who is it? Apartment three is upstairs. What?

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Can I have two minutes?

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Dose minutes

Okay, if you have anything you want talk about... What?

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You can also check out guyset.com for so much more content. Thank you so much. Listen to guys set a guy's guide to what should be talked about. And I will see you guys next Tuesday. See you guys.