Entering your 20’s can cause a lot of emotions. You are likely to be moved out and on your own, still in college, and slowly starting to realize you are not a kid anymore. Your 20’s are also when a lot of exciting things may happen in your life: graduating college, your first career, your wedding, your first child. If you are anything like me the thought of this freaks you out.
There are people you look at who seem to have their entire world placed perfectly together yet you continue to stay up ’til 3 AM drunk off of wine and eating pizza. (Trust me, we have all been there.) But I think your early 20’s are your time to be spontaneous and carefree. We are trying to figure out the type of person that we want to be and having a lot of fun along the way. Then the day comes when you realize you have no idea what you are doing with your life. It’s okay to be confused about what you want in your life, you’re still just trying to figure out how to be independent.
No one is going to have it all figured out right away; it takes experiences and plenty of mistakes along the way.
It’s okay to not know what you want to do after college. Picking a major is hard enough and you probably have changed your mind at least once, and the same thing is going to happen for a career. It’s okay to be unsure. It’s okay that you don’t know where you see yourself in 10 years because you are still making your path. People in their early 20’s feel pressure to have their life all planned out and put together when in reality it’s the opposite. We are confused, stressed, and young.
The best way to ensure that you are successful in the future is to embrace all of the opportunities that come your way in your 20’s. With each experience you take on, you are shaping yourself and growing as a person. You are not handed a book that tells you how to land your dream career. It’s up to us to figure out how.
A lot of stress comes when you are working hard to have enough money to pay for things yourself, going to school full time, and trying to maintain a social life. It’s okay to be stressed; it means you care about what you are doing. It’s okay if your bank account is running on empty sometimes (or a lot of the time…), we are still learning how to manage money and take care of ourselves. It can be a rough lesson to learn, but eventually you will find a budget that works for you and your finances.
Everyone finds his or her passion in life at a different time. If you haven’t found it yet, keep trying new things until you do because with new experiences you will discover it.