To the kid who hasn't figured out yet,
You’re probably the fourth year graduating in a “non-stem” degree, the third year going through the existential crisis of “adulthood,” the sophomore just realizing they screwed up their freshman year by not building that resume, or the freshman currently screwing up. All are different phases within this four-year procrastination period to “growing up,” yet all four versions of this person has something in common: they don't have it figured out yet.
The adults in your life whether they’re your parent or hypercritical relative that keeps hounding you with interrogative pressures on when you’re actually going to grow up: What extracurriculars are you involved in? How are you paying for college? When are you going to find a job? What career goal are you going with that major? Why can’t you speak four languages and work for a Wall Street company just like your cousin?
Well, you can tell that assumably-responsible, nosy relative that you’re only in your early 20s and only human (as Christina Perry would emotionally express in her most recent hit song). Also you’re life is none of their businesses. They did their time with youth; it’s our turn now. And what you do with your life is your responsibility unless your are incapable to control it.
People are going to judge your decisions no matter how successful or how much of a failure you are during the any phase of your life. So you go be that kid, the one with the unemployable major, the one coming in to that midterm hungover, the one that hasn't build that resume, the one that hates their job but keeps it to feed themselves.
Because this century failed us. We just waltz right in to college/workforce with no knowledge of life. For 18 years expectations were handed to us to just automatically figure out life like this “adult” switch that was supposed to turn on in our brains once we reached the big “one-eight”. Yet life has a funny way of showing us our own destiny with an overpriced education, a competitive and limited job market, and a unpredictable, questionable political future that affects all young people.
There are probably peers around you that seems to have it all together somehow: taking all the “popular” extracurriculars on campus or already a billionaire at 20 for creating some app or something. But don’t forget you’re just as extraordinary as that kid because your time just hasn’t come yet. According to celebrity success stories, your 20’s are suppose to suck you dry of hopes and dreams. It sounds depressing but if life sucks now, just know that your 20’s are supposed to suck. (Trust me, I made this decision after six shots and drunk-crying with one of my co-workers at his place once).
It’s okay to screw up in your 20s and/or have no direction in your life. Being scared out of your mind about your future is also an evolutionary response engrained in our recently post-pubescent brain chemistry.
Now I’m not saying to screw up your life to a complete pulp of nothingness and lack of potential, but do whatever you have to find your way to your path. Don’t worry about that nagging relative, or those comments about your major, or even not following your dreams. These unsure times will roll by and before you know it, you’ll get life. Somehow. Someway. Someday.
Yours Truly,
A Clueless 20-something
