Your Life Isn’t a Race
Picture source- http://calvaryojai.org
As a young adult, since the day you turn eighteen, there are so many times that we hear, “Now it’s time to apply for college before you graduate.” Or, “Have you even been looking for a job?” “When are you going to move out?” “You can’t stay at your parent’s place forever, you’ll be so lame.”
There has been, for quite some time now, this cultural concept of a timeline in which a person has to follow in order to be successful in life. The timeline starts in high school, usually with juniors or seniors, when people start taking tests and applying to colleges and making sure that their parents are satisfied with their choices. That’s the first sign of this timeline that needs to be filled out step by step. The next step/check point is graduating from high school and getting accepted into a good college. For the most part this check point is finished around the age of 17–18 when the child is officially considered an adult. After this then it’s a series of finding part time jobs and trying not to drowned from the overload of work and classes. All of this happens between 18 and 21 and for some degrees even longer. Once a person earns their degree, or a lot of the time even before that, the need to find a place to live outside of the childhood home occurs. This can cause even more stress for some people. Especially because we all know there is a huge stigma around the idea of a person staying at their parents house for too long. While all of this is going on, something else eventually gets added into the mix: The idea of marriage and when the right time to get married should be. A lot of people feel as though to not fall behind the timeline, one should be married before they are 30 and this creates unnecessary stress and the need to push relationships into something that the couple isn’t necessarily ready for and this could cause complications down the road. And then kids comes next, if the couple wants them. All of it just seems like one big race to everyone and honestly it’s becoming an actual problem in society.
The only thing that this timeline is creating is an exaggerated American Dream that hasn’t been relevant in America since the 70s. Not to mention all of the low self esteem that it’s creating because of the thoughts that are surrounded around this timeline because if the steps aren’t completed on time people start to blame the person trying to follow the timeline and call them a loser or lame etc for not being able to complete the timeline on time. And all of the self blame is really taxing on someone’s self esteem.
As a generation, we need to stop and look around and realise that this timeline isn’t what defines us. It doesn’t matter if you’re still living with your parents at the age of 27. It doesn’t matter that you haven’t gone to college. It doesn’t matter that you’re still working at a part time job even though your already 30. If you’re working towards something bigger and better, if you are happy with where you are now; then it shouldn’t matter what other people think about how old you are. You are not a failed American Dream. People need to stop worrying about everyone else, and start paying more attention to themselves. No one needs to prove themselves to anyone but themselves.
