Are you graduating this month? Or perhaps you know someone who is?
A few days ago, a supporter asked Alexandria if she had also felt lost and scared when she graduated from college. Check out her response below:
“Yes! Be kind to yourself during this time! This photo is of me, bartending at 28, just a few months before I would find myself elected to Congress. I had no idea what was about to happen to me.
I was very scared graduating college! I felt “behind” and like a failure for a long time. My biggest piece of advice is to be gentle with yourself. Take risks, fail, get up, try again. There is so much pressure to be “successful” (whatever that means) right out of school, but I find that can be a trap or a curse of its own.
Bartending was really hard, I beat myself up a lot over this idea of “not living to my potential.” I lost some friends who wanted to be around more “successful” people, but looking back I also feel like it was the best thing to happen to me. It was a very grounding time where I feel like I really developed myself, maintained and made the realest friendships I have, and tried to do lots of new and different things. I spent a lot of that time wishing I was “doing better” and scared I would “never amount to anything” (hi, eldest daughter checking in!!) or have any stability to my life. But looking back I wouldn’t change it at all. I would just have been more patient and kind to myself.”
In our capitalist society, it can be so hard to separate our sense of self-worth from the job that we do or what we produce. But, we must be gentle with ourselves and look at our career path as just one piece of our development as a whole, complex person.
Please be gentle with yourself 
,
Team AOC
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