I am 20 years old, and apparently this is around the time of life when I should really start figuring things out. What if I don’t get a job after college? What if I’ve taken on too much? Am I doing enough? Should I do more? What if it is already too late?
No. Enough with the questions. Enough with the timing. Enough with worrying over things that we cannot control. Enough.
It is so hard to not focus on everything that doesn’t matter. I shouldn't say that it doesn’t matter — it is more like it is irrelevant, distracting, debilitating to the average 20-year-old's self-esteem. So take a breath. Yes, this is a normal thing. Most 20-year-olds go through a 20-year-old crisis.
I remember my dad telling me once that there are usually two major times of crisis in one’s life. According to my father, one crisis happens in our 20s, and the other crisis is our standard midlife cliché.
Our 20-year-old crisis occurs when we figure out that, well, I guess it is time to pull our lives together even though we have no clue on how to go about doing that. It is time to be an “adult." But as we stumble our way through the standard trials of life, really only one of three things can happen.
1. You figured it out!
Woo! Good for you! However, you are of the minority. The rest of us are on the sidelines, crying into Roman while listening to an old high school playlist primarily consisting of punk rock and crappy alternative music.
2. You thought you had it all figured out and discover that you were very much mistaken.
This is more common than scenario number one. In this case it’s more like —damn it! Here goes nothing for a third change of major in less than a year. Or, damn it! The pregnancy test was positive. Or, damn it! How did everyone end up either pregnant or engaged in the span of like three months while I’m still over here crying into my Roman over nothing really all that important?
3. You still have no idea what you are doing.
I feel like this is the most common situation for the average 20-year-old. At least from my own experience, this scenario is fairly standard. Indecision comes with a fear of never finding the right fit. Questions over what will or will not make us happy cloud our minds. We seem to completely forget that we are still so young.
Sometimes I feel like we want to rush pivotal moments in our lives because we are afraid of missing them completely. If we can’t grab hold quickly and cling on for dear life to what we want before we grow old, we worry that it might never be. I think that this has influenced many of the average 20-year-old's everyday problems. We want to fall in and out of love quickly. We want passion to burn quickly. We want an everlasting fire in our soul to fuel an engine that has so much further to go.
We forget that we have our whole lives to grow old. We have our whole lives to fall in love, to change the world and to make a place for ourselves. So, if facing a 20 year old crisis, take a breath and remember that there is so much more time left when we waste less on worry.
