You graduated! #graduate #shots #nowwhat

To all the recent college grads reading this post, I was sitting in your seat wearing that cap and gown exactly four years ago. When I graduated in May 2013, I thought I was hot shit. I thought employers would be lining up with job offers.

I wasn’t, and they weren’t.

Instead, I was living at home, getting rejected by what seemed like every company on Earth, and scrolling through Instagram envying my employed friends’ lives.

A year after living at home, freelancing, and trying to figure out why I hadn’t been a business major in college, I decided to do something else with my life. I decided I had bigger ambitions than my hometown of Sandy Springs, Ga.

I decided on New York City.

Cheers, y’all! Rosé on the rooftop is always a great way to celebrate!

New York always seemed like a distant dream — great to talk about with your friends over wine (oh my god! We’ll move there one day, live in a penthouse apartment, and take weekend trips to the Hamptons!), but not a place you would actually move to. And then I did. Three years later, it’s still the hardest and best thing I’ve done.

I am in no position to give anyone advice because I’m still figuring this out myself, but this is for all of you new graduates who are like “WTF happens now?” and “I want to move to NYC, but I’m not sure I can because [insert 1,001 excuses here].”

Here are 3 reasons why you won’t move to New York after college

#1 = ‘I can’t afford to live in New York.’

If you know how to add and subtract, you can figure out how to live in New York. I moved here on a painfully low salary — more than half of my paycheck went to rent.

Yet I still lived. I still bought food. I even went out with friends on the weekends. How? I budgeted every penny.

Here’s a glimpse of my personal finance budget worksheet

After taking out my expenses (rent, bills, a subway pass that costs more than a Kate Spade bag), I had about $120 per week left to spend on whatever I wanted. That’s about $17 per day — or the equivalent of like 2.5 cups of coffee.

There are about a million personal finance apps you can download, but there’s nothing that comes close to having to physically write down “– $18.99 for cab” in your planner and see your $120 disappear 4ever. It makes your priorities change — maybe you should really think twice before you jump in a cab instead of sweating on the train.

It sucks, but that sense of accomplishment you get when you have $3.64 saved at the end of the week is indescribable. Regardless of whether you’re making $35,000 or $350,000, being in control of your finances is the key.

#2 = ‘I’ll be antisocial and alone for the rest of my New York days.’

It’s actually surprisingly easy to move up here and remain safely in your Southern bubble. You’ll hang out with other alums, you’ll go to your designated school bar to watch college football on the weekends, and you’ll go out with the same people you saw at frat parties freshman year.

This little cycle is a double-edged sword. Yes, college friends are comfortable and familiar and you can commiserate about that time a homeless person tried to spit on you (a real thing that happened), but that’s not why you’re here.

Seriously, have to give a shout out to my pal Mariana Heredia. I don’t know where I’d be without her.

Hang out with that kid who just moved here from Spain, go to the Met with the girl who fundamentally disagrees with your political views, mentor a student in the Bronx. Do something to get out of the insular bubble (i.e. college) that you’ve lived in for the last two decades of your life.

PS: The one serious advantage Southerners have over New Yorkers is their aggressively shameless friendliness. Smile, ask a random question, and you’ve got a stranger from Long Island asking, “Y’all want a drink?” in like 20 minutes.

#3 = ‘I’ll fail miserably & somehow end up lost in Times Square.’

Me in Times Square! I made it without getting lost, and I’m not broke or homeless.

You’ll compare yourself to your friends working in finance who are already making disgusting amounts of money at age 23. And you’ll have moments of “Maybe I’m reallyyyy not supposed to live here.”

Muster up every ounce of confidence you have, and stay laser-focused on your goals.

The one thing that always held me back from doing exactly what I wanted was thinking that I would disappoint someone — that journalism professor, my friends, the people I look up to. And the brutal truth is: no one cares.

You’re an adult now, and you’re the only person responsible for the trajectory of your life. Right now is the time to make mistakes, fail miserably, get fired, go to Times Square, and even beg your friends to go to Times Square with you…there’s plenty out there to screw up.

Those things are all distractions. The only person you should ever compare yourself to is the future version of yourself. I got this piece of advice from a wise, old philosopher named Matthew McConaughey (judge me, I’m not sorry).

And if all else fails…there’s a Chick-Fil-A here now. You’ll be alright.

Editor’s Note: Want to read more from Polina? Subscribe to her weekly newsletter, The Profile

To a New York kid like me, Southerners were defined by “The Dukes of Hazzard”.

When my Dad suggested I apply to Emory University, I thought he wanted me to learn about overnight delivery services. It only took one gorgeous weekend on Emory’s campus in 1977 (my senior year of high school) to change my life. Now, every year that spring rolls around here in late February, I feel like I stole something.

Forty years down here and I still can’t get used to daffodils in February and azaleas in March.

Emory was an overall incredible experience. I even had some fun…

Yup, that’s my college fraternity composite.  I had a lot of hair at one time and I can prove it.

After I graduated from Emory (English, not air freight), I headed back north to law school at Georgetown University. Three years back within spitting distance of home and back among the kind of folks I grew up with. During my second year at Georgetown, I campaigned with everyone else for a summer clerkship at a firm that would pay me far more than I was worth for a summer of writing memos and partying.

With law school graduation approaching, I applied to firms in New York, D.C. and Atlanta (of course). Although I had offers in all three places, I went with the firm that made me feel the most welcome, Hansell Post in Atlanta. Sadly, Hansell Post isn’t around anymore, but those of a certain age will remember it was the Pepsi to King & Spalding’s Coke.

And it was as Southern as sweet tea.

My father was apoplectic when I told him that I was going to eschew my offers from firms in NYC and D.C.; to quote Dad, directly, I was about to “throw away my law degree in that backwater!” I have always put great stock in my dad’s advice. Nonetheless, down to the backwater I went and, unlike Sherman, I never left.

I don’t think of myself as a Damn Yankee. It’s my choice to be Southern.

Georgia has been my home state for decades; but, I am not a Southerner. Not by a long shot. Ask me where I’m “from” and I will invariably (and proudly) reply “New York”. Hey, if you can make it there, right?

Yet, I chose to start my family in the South.

My lovely wife, Sarah, our two kids: Brian and Alison. #GoBraves!

I met my wife here in Atlanta and my two kids were born at the “baby factory” Northside Hospital. I root for the Braves, not the Mets, use “barbecue” as a noun, not a verb, and learned that a “Coke” can be a Sprite, Dr. Pepper, or Fanta.

I have been known to throw in a “y’all” from time to time and I love to quote one of my mentors, the late Bill Gibson, who used to say that someone who was in over his head “could fuck up a two-car funeral.”

Those things are just fitting in, though; they don’t make one a southerner any more than learning not to make eye contact on the subway makes you a New Yorker.

Unlike Gerald O’Hara, I have never felt any particular love for “land”.

But, it does seem after all these years that where you’re born does define who you are. I consider myself blessed to have grown up in New York. The Met, Radio City Music Hall, Times Square, Yankee Stadium, Madison Square Garden, the Empire State Building, Wall Street, Central Park – all these icons and many, many, more were fixtures of my childhood, as familiar as breathing. I would not trade that upbringing for the world. Yet, I have lived happily in Atlanta for twice as many years as I lived in New York. Perhaps we just need to amend the old bumper sticker that used to read “American by Birth; Southern by the Grace of God” to say…

“Yankee by Birth; Southern by Choice.”