Get a second job. Check. Volunteer. Check. Start a career search. Clean my room. Check. Do my laundry. Check.

Now that I've complied a list of the things I've wanted to accomplish this quarter, realized I have no clean clothes and am counting down the days until I am left jobless, it starts to come into perspective.

College is not real life.

After graduating this summer and being left with my job at The Daily as the only structure left in my life, I've found out how easy it is to fall apart. How easy it is to sleep in until 1 p.m. instead of getting up and taking a walk. How easy it is to watch one more episode of America's Next Top Model instead of picking up a book.

In college, you learn a lot of things: how to complete tasks, how to live on your own, how eat with only $8 in your bank account. But for some reason, college has this strange way of being just structured enough that everything fits into this little easy-to-swallow pill that is your future.

Well, it's time to swallow.

And it turns out it isn't so easy. What is easy is falling into the routine of only doing the bare minimum to survive and making up for the past four years of lost sleep.

Life needs goals: aspirations, motivation, anything to prevent you from sleeping from punch-out to punch-in.

And that goal shouldn't just be work. Having a great job (or any job at all) does give a sense of accomplishment, but that can't be it. Don't be a live to work/work to live person. Please, don't.

A life of nothingness surrounded by a job, sleep and the occasional weekend bar run can be addictive. But, like any other addiction, it eventually has a comedown.

Turns out it's different when you're not paying your boss $40,000 a year to go to work, and he doesn't give a crap if you show up.

Your job is no longer a goal, but a piece of structure in your life that creates stability. You rely on it to keep you from sleeping all day, but it doesn't give you that satisfaction of accomplishment anymore.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have pride in your job or hate it incessantly. Society (or at least my generation) seems moving away from the painstaking 9-5 epidemic and into a realm of exploration and sense of pride for what one does.

But that can't be it.

People need hobbies, interests, goals, fresh air. Many college students wouldn't believe it if I said not being in school and sleeping all day is depressing. And no, its not just SAD.

No college student should ever experience a sense of worthlessness after they graduate; they should be thriving in their ability to accomplish things and put that toward their "dreams and aspirations," to be cliché.

So don't get lost. Whether you're graduating in a month or four years, find a purpose. And that doesn't have to be solving world hunger or becoming the next female president (though it could be); it just has to be something that motivates you to get up every morning more than 10 minutes before work (or stay up/out/away from the TV after work).

Find a way to move in a forward direction so you don't dig into a rut. It's all too easy to get caught up in nothingness, especially if you're still surrounded by people who are still going to school and partying every weekend.

It's hard to imagine, but life may not just be about going to school and getting a good job. It might just be about finding yourself.

[Reach columnist Jen Ludington at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]