how do you define early-20s?
It was my 29th birthday recently. I also happen to be a late-blooming college student living in Seattle. As such, I am always studying at the same level of a demographic that at times feels like a younger-older sibling dynamic.
A few days ago, it was also the 4th of July, and I was driving around down the rows of college housing in the University District as the sun was setting. Outside of a rundown house that has likely seen a great number of human festivities, I saw a young couple. A boy, sitting in a lawnchair, looking into the eyes of a girl who sat crossing him on his lap, stroking his hair with loving affection.
“Do you ever feel like running away?” My girlfriend asked me one night.
“All the time”. I said instinctively, before my higher reasoning could kick in and I could really consider what she was asking me.
Yes, I do think about sailing away into the sunset. But I’ve already done that. Part of the reason I came back to college so much later in life is because I wanted to take time away from my study to be this lost, romantic wanderer. And you know what? That feeling is temporary. And it’s not free either. The cost of feeling free from all responsibility and is paid for with the opportunity debt of the time used to cultivated commitments. Cultivating, because commitments are not a “ball and chain” or “locking down”, but a tradeoff that comes with the privileges slow growth, which are not immediately apparent. The bigger a fruit tree gets, the harder it is to move, but you will never grow any fruit you keep on ripping up your saplings before they are able to grow until maturity.
Going with the wind is also what being in your early 20s is all about for most people. You live in a new apartment you can’t afford every year. You try out a few different jobs. You swipe right on a few different partners. There is no foundation.
That’s ok for 20-somethings, who shouldn’t be worrying foundations. The world doesn’t take them seriously, and thank god it doesn’t, because most of them haven’t figured out what to pursue that will lead them to future self-actualization (i.e. avoiding a mid-life crisis, finding the right partner, not working a job that doesn’t run their soul through a food processor). Moving fast and breaking things gives people space to do that. But after living in three very chic, urbane US cities I’ve begin to notice the pattern of people far beyond their college years shedding all responsibility to start over again and again.
We are addicted to living in our early 20s, and it is holding us back from growing up. Even hearing the words “grow up” triggers a reactive response, like some self-righteous businessman pointing a finger at us no-good-hippies. But growing up doesn’t mean you stop jumping with the kids in the bouncy house, it just means you accept that for every “no” you say gives you a “yes” somewhere else. That is, saying no to the kind of experiences we see in movies and on instagram in favor of the mundanity of fostering community and peacefulness.
The obvious culprit is FOMO –Fear Of Missing Out. I think the reinforcement of glamorizing the kinds of experiences people have in their early 20s only aggravates the problem. For better and for worse, people’s bucket lists used to be much simpler: you found a person to marry, had a few kids, worked a steady job, and retired. There is are a lot less steps to double check to make sure you crossed off there.
But underneath FOMO the subtle culprit. You could argue education or urbanization has something to do with it, but I don’t think that’s accurate. FOMO may be alive and well at the undergraduate level but it is disruptive to a pHd student; it takes a ton of commitment and discipline to lock into a study enough to write academic papers and stay dedicated to research that is unlikely to yield good compensation compared to what is attainable in industry. As for FOMO being caused by urbanization, –there are plenty of people who live in rural settings who crave “getting lost” in the big city. This isn’t just an economics thing (the cost of living in cities is insane compared to living out in the cleaner, more spacious country). What forces could possibly be engaging the starry eyed farm boys and girls to leave their shires, diversify their sex lives, forget to pay back their friends for dinner, and migrate from year-to-year to another new upscale, doggo-friendly highrise?
I’ve always found the connection between media and human unhappiness interesting. In a way, consuming media is the purest form of capitalism because the functional usage of media products is intangible —purely intellectual, and so the ownership of it is at the mercy of contractual obligations and investment opportunity.
One study observed correlations in India that weighed economic status, female literacy, life expectancy at birth, electrification, the percentage of urban population, and the Human Development Index against the fertility rate for each state and union territory in India. What they found was that none of these were as likely to correlate with fertility rate than media exposure. Whether or not the coorelation is valid, the thought that media can significantly affect humanity at the level of reproduction is suspicious.
I don’t even think the type of media we consume matters (news, cartoons, documentaries, etc). It’s consumption itself instead represents a tragedy of our human faculties. Our ability to listen to and comprehend the deeper meaning in stories enabled human beings as a species to derive deeper truths from our animal instinct. Unfortunately, the vastness of media has exploited this capability, and once again turned us into animals once more. This time, we can’t stop listening. In our world, it’s omnipresent.
That means that there is always a new narrative to run to when your life becomes uncomfortable, leading you astray from remaining steadfast and consistent to the most meaningful relationships you have in your life, including the one with yourself.
As you enter your late twenties, and likely even more in your 30s, 40s, and 50s –you and many people around you may reminisce, long for, and even envy the seemingly endless adventure and new pastures presented to us through the lives of our younger friends, Instagram, Netflix, and the internet. But if you listen long enough, you may also find that everyone has regrets, even very happy people. Why let nostalgia rob you of who you are right now?