I've always been a five-year-plan kind of girl. In high school, I had my path to college all planned out by the end of my freshman year. I knew exactly which colleges I was going to apply to and what extracurricular activities I was going to do to get myself accepted into them.

When I got to Brandeis, I felt less sure of what the end goal would be. Yet my sophomore year when I decided what my major would be, I still sat down with a friend of mine who was a Roosevelt Fellow and planned out the rest of my time at Brandeis, down to which classes I would take my second semester of senior year.

By the end of my sophomore year, I already knew what my thesis topic was going to be and how, when, and where I was going to carry out the fieldwork for it.

For all of my obsessive planning however, I never was able to figure out just what it was I wanted to do once I graduated from Brandeis. I also never thought that I would ever get to the day of my commencement without a job already secured, a place to live and a little cushion in my bank account.

Yet, on Sunday I graduated from Brandeis without any plan at all. All I know is that I will pack up my room and go back to New York with my parents. I will spend the next four weeks relaxing and visiting friends before I head off to Israel for the summer. My return from Israel, however, is blank-a question mark.

I am terrified. And also angry with myself for not having planned better, thought harder and worked more to secure something, anything for myself to do next year. I am worried about tight funds, especially because I do not know when I will be able to secure any employment again, even if just a job at a caf?(c). Most of all I am worried about having to move back in with my parents after a gap year and four years of college living totally independently of them.

Despite all these worries, which do not cease to grow and multiply, when I laid down to sleep on Sunday night after officially joining the ranks of Brandeis alumni, I had a strangely uncharacteristic thought. It occurred to me that without any particular obligations for the coming year of where I have to be or when, I can literally do anything that I want.

Normally when I make my five-year plan, I do so by placing myself in "the box." I choose paths that correspond to my strengths, and I never choose an end goal that I do not think I can achieve, or that I am not entirely sure about. Ultimately, all of my plans have fed into the notion I have that I should go to college, do exceptionally well, graduate and start my career, and later get married and start a family.

As I am standing on the edge of the cliff that is the "real world," I am realizing that now is perhaps the best time I will ever have to throw all my plans to the wind and simply follow my whims. Perhaps by placing myself in "the box" all these years, I have sold myself short of the full range of my capabilities.

This is not to say that I haven't done exceptionally well at Brandeis, because I have, and I am extremely proud of my accomplishments. I have, however, only made accomplishments in a very limited field. I have excelled in anthropology, but I have neglected to pursue other interests and to nourish my creative mind. I have always believed that I "can't" do art, music, dance or martial arts because I am simply not talented enough for these things. Yet in my time at Brandeis, I did not branch out beyond the obligatory distribution requirements to give myself the opportunity to even try these things.

On Sunday night when it occurred to me that I can do anything I want, it also occurred to me that I am afraid of the coming year precisely because I have been placing myself in "the box" all this time. Since I don't have a fantastic job that will launch me into a steady and fulfilling career, I am suddenly sitting on the outside of this perfect little "box" with no real way to get back in, nor with any idea how I might get back in. It's unnerving to be locked out of this ideal, but it's also the greatest blessing I could possibly have. With no obligations for the coming year, I can literally choose any interest, any activity that occurs to me on a whim and do it, even if it means that I have to support myself doing a job I didn't need to go to college to do.

It's time to break out of "the box" and explore everything else that I am capable of.
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