So, graduate, after you pick up the catered fried chicken, streamers and helium balloons for your party, what's next on your 'to do' list?

What's that? You say you don't know for sure? College or the military or work, you suppose, but nothing all that definite beyond that?

Though you very might have your immediate future mapped out, who's to say where you -- and our country and our culture -- will be in five, 10, 20 or 30 years. Or, heaven forbid you consider life at retirement age, which for you very well may be 95.

Remember, when you were born, "portable" phones were the size of a brick (and weighed about the same) and the Internet -- in the prehistoric pre-Web 2.0 days -- welcomed its relatively few users with a funky squelch over phone lines. The nation had yet to hear of Columbine. The Twin Towers were a staple in every movie's New York cityscape. People were just getting familiar with the term SUV and not caring how much it cost to fill the tank of their Jeep Cherokee. Cloning was merely a cheesy plot twist in science fiction movies. And Iraq was just another country across the ocean.

It's scary how things change in just a few years. How's a person supposed to prepare for the future when the future is so fluid?

We'll get to that, but first -- trust me on this -- let's pretend a spaceship will make an emergency crash landing on our planet next week.

As our brightest scientists examine this spacecraft from an advanced civilization, their minds would be whirring at the thought of breaking down the extraterrestrial technology into comprehensible bits that would provide insight into how our own small-minded understanding of science could be turbocharged.

Like some problems you encountered in school, the scientists would work backwards. They would reverse engineer.

So should you.

You're at a point in your life that is full of possibility. Every decision you make is full of potential. You can set a a thousand different courses to grow into a thousand different people.

It can be overwhelming. Your generation is both blessed and cursed by the amount of choices it has. But it is manageable.

Take some time and think about who you want to be -- professionally, personally, spiritually, and as a citizen of this state, country and world.

You don't have to have an exact image of who you want to be in the year 2028, but by now you should have a fairly good idea of the qualities that you admire in others and would like to possess.

Consider who your role models really are. Think about those adults who seem light years ahead of you, and then talk to them. Ask them how they became the person they are today. Ask them about their choice and the good and bad consequences they had on their lives.

Then work backwards, using their advice to select the right paths for you and to avoid the wrong ones.

Start at the end of the maze and work your way back to the beginning, back to the starting point where you find yourself right now. Soon enough you'll find yourself right, period.