Why our 20’s are No Longer a Time of Self-Discovery, and Why They Need to Be.
When my parents were 23, they were married with two children, finished with college and already working. I’m 23 and couldn’t be further away from where they were at my age. Sure, I am in a committed relationship, but I am still in college, jobless and years, if not a decade, away from starting a family.
I grew up watching “Dawson’s Creek” and “Sex and The City,” which led me to believe that my 20’s would be the easiest and best time of my life — that the time between high school nonsense and adult seriousness would be a time of self-exploration and finding my path. Although my parent’s example was different, their marriage ended in divorce by the time I entered my teens and I figured they had just done everything wrong — that if they would have taken the time to figure out who they were in their 20’s, maybe everything would have worked out fine. Regardless, the idea I had formed from TV, and in spite of my parents, of what it meant to be in your 20’s, was totally false. While our 20’s should be a time of freedom, of messing up and finding ourselves, in 2014, we don’t have the time. Instead, our 20’s have become a time filled with pressure, where searching for a way to make money and a way to live up to our parent’s expectations have taken up all the time and energy that should be focused on finding out who we really are.
At 23, I feel pressure to have my life completely planned out — not just from my family, but from society. I’m supposed to know exactly what I want to do when I finish college and have a job lined up. If I don’t finish college, I won’t be able to get a job anywhere. I’m not supposed to waste my time trying everything, I’m supposed to know exactly what I’m good at already and pursue a career in that field.
Being in your 20’s is no longer a time for experimentation, but more so, no longer a time for dreaming. When I tell my family I want to be an artist, they tell me to be realistic and that there is no money to be made in the arts. In 2014, there is no money to be made anywhere. A recent New York Times article, “Do Millennials Stand A Chance In The Real World?” asserted that our generation is the most educated of any generation, yet having graduated during a “once-in-a-lifetime financial crisis,” has the least amount of financial and employment opportunity.
More so than ever, kids are moving back in with their parents in an attempt to save money during the inevitable time between graduation and finding a job. A 2012 Pew Research Center study concluded that 36 percent of young adults ages 18-31 are currently living at home with their parents. In addition, many students and graduates have already amassed huge amounts of debt, after taking out student loans. A 2011 study by the National Center for Education showed that the average student debt ranged between $20 and $25,000, growing higher than ever before. Because of all these anxieties, many of us have been forced into being “practical,” or what my family calls “realistic.” Instead of taking the time we need in our 20’s to decide what we want to do with the rest of our lives, we are preparing for our 30’s. Many of us are being forced by financial crises into dead-end jobs that we have no interest in. Before we know it, we will be in our 30’s and just like our parents.
Most of our parents were part of the “Baby Boomer” generation, which has been characterized as a generation who rejected traditional values. Our generation is characterized as lazy, spoiled brats, or as Time Magazine put it, the “Me Me Me Generation.” But in reality, we are expected to adhere to the same standards as previous generations in a time where it is almost impossible. The recession, the dwindling economy and our job market, or lack thereof, has left us in a completely unique position. And although very few of us could afford to get married in our 20’s, most Millennials are choosing to wait anyway. While our parents’ generation got married in their early 20’s, if not before, I think our generation has decided to wait because we’ve realized that, at 20, we don’t know who we are.
In my case, I don’t want to rush into marriage because I don’t want to end up divorced like my parents. I want to know who I am before I choose to spend the rest of my life with someone, and the same goes for my career. I don’t want to suddenly wake up at 40 and think, “What have I been doing for the past 20 years?” I don’t want to have my life figured out before I’ve figured out myself. I think about my parents after they got divorced and it seemed like they both had no idea who they were. In his late 40’s, my dad chose a completely new profession, realizing he had been unhappy with his job all along. My mom tried out a number of different jobs and thought about returning to school, before telling me how much she regretted not finding out who she was before planning the rest of her life.
Despite the familial, societal and financial stress placed upon us, we must learn from the mistakes of our parents — or at least, my parents — so we don’t end up like them. If your 20’s isn’t a good time to find out who you are, then when is? Time will only become more precious as we enter adulthood, so we must take a step back from our lives in our 20’s and live a little.
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