10 Years, 120 Months, 520 Weeks...

When you think about it, it's rather neat how different life is for everyone ten years after high school graduation. Up until then, everyone leads similar lives: for the bulk of American teenagers, this means spending most of your day in school. Extraneous time is spent on sports, the arts, a part-time job, friends, family, or in the rarest of cases, homework. For nine months out of the year, everyone follows essentially the same schedule, and while vacation plans may vary, most spend it on one of three things: relaxing, traveling, working, or a combination of the above. Not a lot of variation.

Fast-forward ten years. Of the 29-year-old people I know, one is an MD/PhD who has been in school for longer than I have been alive, and will graduate at last from the program in 2013. Another is the CEO of his own company, and travels extensively to promote an academic competition. Yet another is a first year med student who spent a few years in New York as a professional opera singer after attending a music conservatory and a performing arts high school.

And that's just from my admittedly very limited sample.

Even just a year out of high school, my classmates and I are well on our way down different paths. While the majority of my acquaintances chose the popular route of college, some have gotten full-time jobs. Others have gotten engaged or married, and a few even have a kid. And then there's that one guy who went to college, then dropped out after a few months to bike across the United States...


It makes me wonder where I'll be in ten years... what I'll be doing, the friends I have kept, the passions I have developed, the places I've traveled.

Where will you be? Or perhaps more importantly, where do you want to be?