As I head into my third year of college, I have reached a period of what I would deem to be “success” in my life. I have done everything a typical college kid in New England is supposed to do, from reading my books underneath the fall leaves and taking classic courses in colonial style brick buildings, to studying my degree abroad. I have become comfortable with my field of study and have no intention of changing my major, and I have made lifelong friends throughout my college career. However, none of this would have been a reality if I had continually chosen to settle.

Many young adults nowadays, including myself, can become infatuated with taking the easy way out. And no, it is not because we are lazy millennials or have no desire to work. It is because we are fearful of the harsh criticism that we receive when we try to put our best foot forward and strive for what it is we really want in life. No one enjoys failure, yet everyone experiences it. We take the simple route, whether it is within our social lives with friendships, romantically with relationships or personally within ourselves. Our pride has become diminished because we are fighting each end of a very long spectrum. We find ourselves either too eager to succeed and seen as arrogant, or we live in a life fearing what others think of us. Neither leads to any outcome other than disappointment and regret. And then we find ourselves in a crunch wondering what the next step should be. But how are we, as young adults, teetering on the tender ages of 19, 20 and 21, supposed to know what that next step is supposed to be?

I never thought I would have a taste of achievement in my life until recently and it did not come without adversity. I never considered the fact that I was on the edge of settling at the age of 18, with a life that I never wanted, a relationship and friendships that I could never imagine myself looking back on and being proud of. For so long, tracing back to my freshman year of high school even, I have taken the easy way out for the simple reason that I was fearful of failure and attempting to tackle hardships, both ones that were beneficial and life altering.

I could never see myself being anything other than what I allowed to define me. Some days it would be what I was good at, maybe my writings or photography that had been published. Others, I would linger and ponder upon why I was so terrible at, what seemed to be, anything else other than the very few aspects that I was talented in.

I have come to realize that it doesn't matter what you are told you are “good” at or “bad” at. That is settling for other people’s opinions and, in retrospect, the chances of those views do not matter and will never matter. I believe that this is a lesson that all young adults should learn, if they haven't already done so. We are not meant to have it all figured out at such a young age. I once heard someone say that they wouldn't want to revisit their 20's, not because it wasn’t great, but because people often forget there is more to life than just that specific decade. Life will go on after this age, and it will come without compromise because that is just the way it goes. You don't have to make a deal in order to move on with life. And you don't have to settle for what is told is your best. Only you can decide what is going to give you a full amount of prosperity and abundance in your life and chances are, the plethora of affluential elements that will follow will only be part of the many benefits of not settling for the path that is painfully simple.