"If you're happy doing what you're doing, then no one can tell you you're unsuccessful."- Harry Styles.
In my opinion, your ascent into adulthood are the most altering years of your life. Late teens and early twenties are filled with uncertainty, newly-found independence, life changes and choices that will determine what path you will take.
I once heard your 20's described as "the panic years". But lets look at it like this... at 20 years old, a good portion reading this will be halfway through college, some might have graduated from a 2 year school, some might have not gone at all, choosing a totally different path entirely. And while this is the first decade of our lives in which our peers are not required to be on the same path as us, this is a decade that we can simultaneously bond over the incredible life changes we experience, the strangeness of being an emerging adult.
In fact in psychology they define these years with 5 characteristics:
Self exploration
Instability
A focus on self
Feeling in between adolescence and adulthood
Hopeful for the future
It's quite incredible that despite the uniqueness of each persons path during your emerging adulthood, we all experience similar feelings but what I find the most beautiful in those 5 characteristics is our shared optimism about the future. Someone did a survey a couple years ago and found that 95% of emerging adults believe they will accomplish their dreams. That their future is possible and positive.
How incredible is that? Despite the instability and struggles our emerging adulthood brings, its also one of our most hopeful decades of our entire lives.
As someone who has recently entered my twenties I've been reading lots of what this might bring into my life, preparing myself in all the ways one can prepare for the unseeable. And I have begun a few books, habits, and simple thought provoking questions, that I wanted to share with you all today, so that we might all begin and continue through these strange but beautiful and ever-changing years of our lives.
Self-exploration:
Emerging adulthood is finding who you are as a full adult of society. Our teenage and adolescent years have lots of self identity work as well, but these are the years we find ourselves without the peer pressure to fit into a school group or sports team. These are the years we find ourselves without labels already handed to us. We don't get an identity put on us by our classmates or teachers, we don't have adult praise that fuels our drives and passions, now it's up to us to fuel those ourselves. Find what we like, without outside influence telling us.
For this characteristic, I've dedicated myself to trying new things, to not feelings so closed off to things that other people don't associate me with.
Trying new hobbies: Gardening, rock climbing, ice-skating, reading, writing, painting, biking. You don't have to be good at a new hobby, that is not the point, the point is "Does this make me joyous? Am I excited to try it again?"
Traveling to new cities or sites: You know those cheesy "the city girls moves to the country and finds out she loves the quiet?" Well, I believe that travel truly does reveal pieces inside of you that you might not even have known existed until you tap into them.
Try new foods and recipes: Our taste buds are changing with age as well and trying new foods can really open your mind up. I see it as if you're able to open your mind in one area of your life (like trying new foods) you're likely to try opening your mind in another area later on.
Talk to those you typically wouldn't: The act of talking to new and different people can teach you so much. If you always stick with the same people, you will never grow. Not to say ditch your people, but simply expand your social circle. They say you are a combination of the five people you spend the most time with, so who do you want to be? And seek out those people.
Instability:
These years are full of up's and down's which is hard to stay confident in ourselves when the very floor beneath us seems to tilt and alter constantly.
From asking around and reading and just talking to those who have done these years before, my goal is to find a stability within myself.
If I can't rely on my surroundings or others, I know I can always rely on myself.
Last year, I wrote a post about the ups and down that life brings us, that talks about such feelings. It has some tidbits of information on the inevitable instability of life and learning how to navigate your way through them. Let's Talk : Up's and Downs of Life. It is, to date, one of my favorite blog post I have created, as it's not just leading you, but its leading me as well, as I am learning along with you about these years and this life.
A focus on self:
This sounds very selfish, but it's not. In this emerging adulthood, we have no one but ourselves. Most of us do not have children yet, we do not have long term spouses, we don't make enough to support our parents yet. We are simply in a state of the self. And this is good. It proves to our minds that we can live independently, a vital role in adulthood and great for future healthy relationships. Some ways I've been working on this that you could maybe take from are...
Setting boundaries.
Developing a personal financial plan.
Spending alone time.
Making goals that I can accomplish alone.
It is not the act of being selfish but the act of learning to be alone and being comfortable with it.
Feeling in between adolescence and adulthood:
This can be hard, the stuck feeling of being stretched between two identities: adult and adolescent. Personally, this one struck hard, this confusing 'between' feeling. Instead of combatting it, I've decided to embrace it all.
These feelings are unique to this decade of life, you most likely will never feel between in this way again. I am going to enjoy the ways I'm an adult, and the ways I feel lost like a child still. I am going to feel confused and strange and weird and that. is . okay.
As this is such a specific and scary feeling, instead of feeling alone in it, I am choosing to read books, books by authors who have felt this way and who discuss and explain these feelings through characters or stories so that I may not feel as alone in my feelings.
Here are a few recommendations that you can join me in reading:
Everything I know about Love by Dolly Adlteron
Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Reid Jenkins
The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston
Conversations on Love by Natasha Lunn
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
101 Essays That Will Change the way you think by Brianna Wiest
Dear Dolly on Love, Life, and Friendship by Dolly Alderton
Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danier
The Panic Years by Nell Frizzel
A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing by Jessie Tu
Hopeful for the future:
How beautiful it is that we are so hopeful in this stage of changes? In my hopeful future, I pray for a family of love, a lasting and honest relationship, and happiness for where I end up. Of course, I have so so many more strings my heart is tied to, dreams I hope to accomplish, but at the end of the day, those three are my main focus and goals. If nothing else, I hope to obtain those.
As I said before, an astounding 95% of emerging adults are hopeful about their future, however, the downfall is that by the time we actually make it to adulthood that number plummets. Leaving us saddened and distraught about all the things we didn't accomplish that we once thought we would or could. While, I can't help you accomplish every dream, as it's impossible to do everything, I can leave you with the knowledge that not every dream will be accomplished, and that is okay.
Here is a journal prompt that I did to help me find what I am most determined to achieve in life. Because I will not accomplish everything and that is okay, but I can put all my effort into a small selection in hopes of accomplishing those dearest to my heart.
What do I value most in life?
What are the goals I hope to accomplish in life? Can I organize them from most to least important? What is in the top 5? Top 3?
How can I do my best to achieve those most important goals?
Are the most important goals, within my control? If not, what is something I can achieve on my own, that is within my control?
As you might have noticed, two of my goals, involve other people in my life, however they are extremely important to me, so instead of putting them lower on my list because it's out of my personal control, I have a third goal: happiness for where I end up in life. A lot of my goals are out of my control, because I cannot accomplish them entirely on my own, but I can control my happiness. Happiness and my emotions are within my reach.
Truly, despite accomplishing any goals, so long as I am happy in life, I will be okay.
And so will you.
My last tidbit I want to say as I end this very long post, is that I know it is hard, I know you are confused and it feels a bit like a rollercoaster, I know because I am on that ride beside you. We will be okay. We will make it through the tough times, we will live on, and learn so much about life. Sure, we might make many many mistakes as we gain our new sea legs in the ocean of adulthood, but goodness think of all the ways we will grow.
You don't have to have everything figured out. That is what these years are FOR. You are allowed to fall and trip, to try something that may fail, but you are also entitled to get back up and learn from that.
It may be hard to not compare your life to those around you, but remember this is a time of unique paths. Yours will not look like the persons next to you and how cool it that?
In an interview Harry Styles once did he said his friend once told him, "If you're happy doing what you're doing, then no one can tell you you're unsuccessful." Remember that. Keep it in your heart. You don't need to accomplish what everyone else does, so long as you are happy with where you are.
Have a lovely day and enjoy this ascent through emerging adulthood,
Brooklyn.
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