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Sense of Possibilities: Unfiltered.

August 24th, 2010 | 9 comments | Unfiltered

Last week, a colleague of mine (Hi, Ali!) shared this article from the New York Times about 20-somethings. I’ll tell you now, it’s a lengthy read. And the back end is really researchy and science-heavy. But it’s a good one, so if you have an hour to spare, give it a gander.

The article talks a lot about milestones and how today’s 20-somethings are less concerned about hitting the milestones the generations before us did, the “transition to adulthood.” Those milestones include completing school, leaving home, becoming financially indpendent, marrying and having a child. It goes on to give some interesting statistics – that in 1960, 77% of women and 65% of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones. But in 2000, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so.

Which, I must say, makes me feel way more secure in my ass-backwards way of approaching life in my 20′s when I compare myself to the expectations that I was surrounded by as a youngster. I grew up in Kansas, where the path was as such: go to college, meet a man, maybe graduate, get married and start having babies. I am not kidding when I say that I am all but one of my HS girlfriends that isn’t married and/or working on their second child. And you know what, that’s totally okay.

Jeffery Jensen Arnett, a psych professor at Clark University calls the phase that I’m in “emerging adulthood.” He’s done a ton of research on this and it turns out that this whole feeling-like-a-grownup-but-not-really thing is not abnormal. He describes this phase of life as coming to realize a “sense of possibilities” and when I read that, I had one of those super-awesome lightbulb moments.

A sense of possibilities. YES! It’s like the grown-up version of the mentality we had when we were kids when our parents told us we could be whatever we wanted to be. Of course, I’m a bit more realistic about it now, realizing that if I decided “oh I really do want to be a doctor” that I wouldn’t be getting started until I was in my late 30′s (not to mention in more debt than I can possibly imagine) – but I am fully aware that I’m 25 – and the rest of my life is not decided.

The article poses an interesting question, is it better for young people to experiment in their 20′s before making choices they’ll have to live with for more than half a century? Or would young people be better off just getting started on something so they aren’t a step behind the early bloomers?

I think that is something we’re all struggling with. I know a lot of our community has landed some wicked awesome first jobs (because we’re all amazing, duh) but is there something to be said for experimenting while we can? I know people will argue that hopping around and taking time off and exploring totally different opportunities makes your resume look like swiss cheese and nobody will take you seriously if you try to come back from that. If life expectancy is extending into the 90′s – is it realistic to think that what we’re doing now is what we’ll be doing for the rest of our lives?

Is it idiotic for me to want to do digital PR, then be a skydiving instructor, then see where life takes me? Is it ridiculous for someone to want to open up their own yoga studio, or restaurant, or start a new company on their own, and then, if it doesn’t work out, come back to a corporate job? What about our colleagues that aren’t looking for new jobs, but opportunities arise, and they realize they’d be stupid not to explore it? A good chunk of our generation is full of star-performers, people companies want to have on board, people who have opportunities coming at them left and right. At what point in time do you shake off the safety net that is your current situation and dive head first into something new? At what point in time do we stop doubting ourselves (even though we have no reason to do so, obviously) and start making a path towards what we think we ultimately want, no matter how crazy it sounds?

At what point in time do we get over the hump that is the “sense of possibilities” and start feeling like grown-ups? More importantly, why would you want to?

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  • http://becky-johns.com Becky Johns

    I am very comforted knowing you read that article and took away basically the same feelings and thoughts I did. You've got two years on me, but we are very much in the same phase of life and professional development, so I get where your brain is headed.

    The sense of possibilities and the desire to explore, to me, is one of the greatest things about our generation. We have always had options, we've always known multiple ways to solve problems and we've always been resourceful and experimental in ways generations before us weren't. At whatever point expectations changed for us to reach those milestones, we adjusted, and it played a huge role in our pursuit of “adulthood”.

    Did our parents need minimum 2-3 internships before being qualified for a full time job? No. Did our parents have the option to stay on their parents health insurance until they were 25 as long as they were still a full time student? No. Did our parents grow up in a time when relocation away from family was more normal than sticking close to home? No. Did our parents take corporate jobs in their 20s knowing that even if they spent their entire careers with the company they'd still probably never see a pension? No.

    Life is just different now. We job hop because there is little incentive for us to stay (read: unpaid internships, entry level gigs w/no benefits, harder to find companies that match 401K contributions, little to no possibility of pensions for extended years of loyalty). Of course, that's not the case everywhere, but it's more the norm than our parents might think. Also, the digital world lowered the price of entry for us to pursue our passions. It's just easier now to be an entrepreneur or invest in a startup, or whatever…so we're less afraid to try it and go back to the corporate world we know will be waiting if we fail.

    This is getting long-winded so I'll wrap it up, but in short, our sense of possibilities exists because those possibilities really do exist. And traditional expectations of “adulthood” are often obstacles that get in the way. Independence is a virtue.

  • http://brandonzeman.com brandonzeman

    Totally with you on this. I'm pretty close to 26, yet don't feel like I should have had kids by now, or even have gotten married. In many ways I still feel like a kid, which I probably shouldn't. I think I read a summary of this article and definitely felt that we're (Gen Y, 20somethings, whatever) not defined by things like marriage and kids and a house, which is cool.

    I'm just one example but I've bounced around different jobs and I don't think it's a bad thing at all to chase your dreams or go for the next opportunity. Look at some of the older generation- they are stuck taking jobs they don't want, partly because of the economy, but also I think because they did not diversify their skills or experiences enough.

    Glad I'm not the only crazy one feeling this way :)

  • http://twitter.com/JakeCripe Jake Cripe

    I can understand our parents wanting us to settle down with a corporate job and start a family. It is steady, safe, reliable. They no longer have to worry about us! They see these possibilities for us as risks more than opportunities. They would prefer us to be safe rather than sorry and I understand that.
    That being said, I skipped out on the unpaid internships and decided instead to travel the world. I have been to the highest point of the Great Wall of China, climber onto the Pyramids of Egypt, crawled through the Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam, and wandered through the Taj Mahal in India. While my resume may be lacking the experience an internship would have given me, I would not trade my travels for anything. They have given me so many new perspectives on life and a small amount of unpaid busywork is laughable in comparison.
    Many of these opportunities weren't around when our parents were our age. There are so many new and exciting possibilities out there for us that I feel it is almost criminal not to take advantage of them. You get one shot at life…why not make the most of it?

  • http://twitter.com/JakeCripe Jake Cripe
  • http://engineeringeileen.blogspot.com Eileen

    I saw this article and liked it, too. As for the answer to your final questions ~ I would say having kids is when you start feeling like a grown up, and also a pretty good reason for why you would want to. Now, I do not have kids myself so this is speculation. But it seems that the steady job becomes much more important once you have kids ~ the ultimate responsibility. Until then, you can be relatively free to explore. But if you have kids, that means more mouths to feed and bodies to clothe and minds to educate ~ all of which is really expensive. Therefore, it's not as easy to hop around to explore a new passion. And based on my friends' experiences, when you have kids your whole world shifts and priorities change and you become so happy about being a parent, that it overwhelms that need to explore in your career – because now you're busy exploring the world of child-rearing.

    I say this as a 29 year old who has been married for 3 years, is still trying to figure out the career path that I want at the same time that my husband is asking the same questions about his career, while also contemplating when we should have kids. We like to dream about crazy career ideas like becoming a novelist or opening a cupcake shop or a custom furniture business. But in reality, we know that if we do have kids, then those ideas are not practical, at least for pursuing full-time.

    Yup, we are old, I guess. We're both right on the dividing line between gen x and gen y, so… not sure where we fit in!

  • http://detroit.fwix.com Jamie Favreau

    I have to agree with everything people have said and I read that article as well. I also know this isn't a GEN Y situation. I can list a lot of people (including myself) who have not completed that in the allotted time. I also know a lot of Gen X men who have NEVER moved out, gotten a career or had kids. I know someone who is 42 years old and has only moved out for college and never for anything else and he is a small business owner.

    I am finally realizing what I need to do and seeing the wasted time. Is it wasted or was it a learning experience? Probably a little bit of both.

    But to categorize this as a purely GEN Y thing is false. Gen Xers have the same issues and it seems to go unnoticed. Maybe because most of us are living productive lives and have grown up. Not really sure. It seems like the less skilled Gen Xers are living at home while everyone else has become the “adult.” The ones who don't think outside the box and believe everything has to be an hourly wage.

  • http://cr8tivejen.com Jen Grant

    Did you really just write a blog post that only included the word “skydiving” ONCE!?! omg. #doyouhaveafever #youknowiloveyou

    ps – I'm old as hell, so didn't the article, but “go get 'em tiger!” ;)

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