My professors and teachers through my educational career always told me that life would only get harder as I grew up, and for the most part I agree with them. As we shed our innocence and seek out new opportunities, we are simultaneously taking on more risks and responsibilities. Of course, as we grow we hopefully learn to balance our lives and manage the greater burdens we receive, and I have come to think that we at least sub-consciously grow in our overall capacities to handle the stresses of our lives.

There is one time in life, however, that I think things become easier on a person rather than harder. That time? Graduation from formal education!

Think about it for a minute. After stretching your mind to its limits in pursing academic excellence, you are suddenly free to enter the world. If you are lucky (especially at this time of economic season), you already have a job right out of college. Most likely, you will be placed in an entry-level position so you can work your way up the food chain like everybody else. This job will also not require the same level of mind-bending, back-breaking work as school did. Life is easier for this one brief moment in the grand scheme of things.

Enjoy it.

I'll give an anecdotal example to further my point. I currently work full-time with Omniture while attending classes full-time. On top of that, I now have paternal duties to attend to when I am at home! So let's see here: I wake to go to class at 8:00am. Most days I need to stay on campus for group meetings or to work on homework in the little free time that I have between classes. I rush to get food in me before going to work at 5:00pm. Then, I work there non-stop until I get home usually past 11:00pm. Father duties and getting ready for bed means that I am lucky to be asleep by 12:30am, that's if I have all my homework done.

I finish my formal classes near the end of this month. Simply put, this will be one of the best moments of my entire life!