Your 20s are supposed to be among the most exciting years of your life.
But when I graduated college in 2002, I found myself envying a more tame lifestyle – namely that of my parents. I assumed they knew, unlike me, exactly what each day would hold, and they could easily predict what they might be doing one year from now and not second-guess their decisions.
Prior to graduating college, I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a writer. But the second I flipped my tassel and threw my cap in the air, I had no idea how to translate that vague childhood dream into an actual career. Consequently, I’ve had four jobs in the years since I left school – three of them different careers. With each one, I’ve debated whether I really made the best choice.
Friends of mine experienced similar bouts with career indecision. And, like me, they’ve bounced from job to job – often career to career – trying to discover what might fit. This trend expands beyond my college buddies.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, people have an average of 3.3 different jobs from the ages of 23 to 27.
Personal stories and statistics like these have caused older generations to characterize current 20-somethings as lazy, uncommitted, flighty and lacking ambition. When the going gets tough, they say, we just bolt.
In those first months after graduation, I agreed with them. Why couldn’t I pick and stick with a career? Was I really just lazy?
In reality, though, I think the majority of us move from job to job not because we don’t want to work, but because we do want, more than anything, to commit ourselves to a labor of love. I can imagine nothing I wanted more after graduation than to turn myself over to a career path that truly fit with my hopes and dreams. I just had no idea what that was.
Today’s 20-somethings face few limitations when it comes to career choice. Many of us don’t have families to support, so we aren’t required to seek and stay with a job merely for stability. And gender no longer dictates our roles.
We are encouraged, even expected, to secure careers that aren’t just a means for paying the bills but are true passions of ours. This makes for an exciting, and terrifying endless, list of options.
We see a million paths we can take and, at the same time, a thousand potential detours. The daunting task of choosing one road often causes us to change jobs and put off making career-based decisions – on the whole appearing somewhat flaky and without ambition. In reality, we aren’t avoiding hard work, but merely searching in a haystack of options for the needle that is our place in the world.
In the years since graduation, I waited for the perfect career path to illuminate itself. It didn’t. I still don’t know what I what to do when I grow up. However, I’ve learned to become more accepting of my indecision by watching my parents’ lives unfold.
At the beginning of this year, my parents ended their 30-year marriage, and their lives, which previously seemed so mapped out, changed completely. They both were left pondering the next 40 years with the same question that had plagued me since I left school: “What do I do now?” And, still, I don’t think either is quite sure.
This forced me to realize that perhaps the number of choices I face as a 20-something is unique to my age. However, self-doubt is not. Members of every generation face instability in their lives and question the decisions they are making.
Now, when I start wondering whether I am on the right path, I take comfort in believing that we all face uncertainty. Ultimately, though, I believe we make the best decisions for ourselves based on what we know at the time. I suppose that’s the most anyone can do – no matter if his or her choices are made at 20 or 80.
Amanda Cherry lives in Boulder. As a woman in her mid-20s, she is striving to define herself, her career and her place in the world.
