As twenty-somethings, we're all suffering/blossoming through a very transitional period of our lives. All of us.
Whether we're in school or part of the workforce, looking for a job without success or jumping from one position to the next in hopes to find our niche;
whether we're single and loving it, looking for love, or happily committed;
whether we're buying a house or living with our parents;
getting ready to be parents or just began that journey, or we're waiting, or planning to adopt, or can't have kids, or never want to;
if we never left our hometown or refuse to give up the life of transience...
We're all making choices and experimenting what works for us.
Social media is a great way to keep up to date with friends and acquaintances whose lives would be unfamiliar to us otherwise. We can see who's moving where, who just had the cutest little baby, who's engaged or married or broken up or graduating or getting a job or traveling or staying in the same place or learning new skills or partying or WHATEVER it is that everyone we knew from school is doing now. It's great, sometimes. It makes it easy for us to stay connected and informed. But it also makes it easier for us to judge others for their choices, or to judge ourselves.
I urge you, twenty-somethings, to resist the temptation to scorn others' decisions. They are working to find their place. Maybe they've found it, or maybe they're still in the trial-and-error phase. If their lifestyle isn't one that you'd enjoy, here's some good news: YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO IT. You get to make your own choices to lead the life that works for you. If someone you know from high school is engaged and pregnant and moved across the country to be a stay-at-home mom, COOL! If a coworker from the part time job you had in high school is an eternal student who lives in their parents' pool house, NICE. If your childhood crush is posting pictures of themselves getting high on an airplane and has become a serial dater with stalker-like tendencies, well... that might be a red flag. But if you want to live in a commune on the beach with your cousins and sell sandwiches to business people, and that makes you happy, and you're growing as a human, DO IT.
Find your adventure. That could mean staying at home each weekend with your girlfriend and training your new puppy. It could mean getting a PhD because you don't feel like you know where you're meant to be. It could mean selling all of your possessions and hiking the Appalachian Trail or backpacking through Central America. Do what makes you happy, and what makes you a better person. Forget about everyone else's milestones and To-Do Before Thirty lists. Find YOUR adventure.
