There are unwritten but known rules that indicate someone is finally an adult.
Things like finishing your degree, marrying, finding your career, and becoming financially stable. In previous generations, people were able to achieve all these milestones easily and almost effortlessly. In this day and age, things aren’t as easy as it seems. Jobs are hard to find, people have an identity crisis, not all couples are ready to commit, fear of the unknown, work problems, etc. These so-called milestones are becoming hard to achieve and harder to maintain. However, young adults are putting these milestones as indicators of success, making them feel like they aren’t grown-ups or up to par with what it means to be responsible.
While it feels good to achieve one or two milestones, it’s not the be-all and end-all of everything. It’s time to stop obsessing over achieving everything all at once and enjoy what you have.
Here are simple reminders that will help you see life in a different light.
Not all Progress is Linear
If you measure success based on all the things you have accomplished in a short amount of time, you might feel frustrated afterward if you went to another venture and it took you a while to achieve half of the progress.
The idea we have inside our heads that we need to excel in everything we do is a myth. Progress is not always linear, we fail a lot more than we succeed, so take it easy, as it takes guts, maturity, and strength to get up and try again.
The Only Thing Standing in your Way is Unattainable Standards
Society, parents, and even friends, whether intentional or not, do pressure you to fit into a certain mold through unattainable standards.
For example, you’re asked by the age of 25 to graduate, have a job, meet your future spouse, and move out of your parent's place, yet not everything happens right away. Not everyone can achieve all of these things by the time they turn 25. Besides, what was attainable yesterday, isn’t attainable today. As a sign of growing up and maturing, your ideologies and way of thinking change, so holding on to societal expectations and milestones is overrated now. Your life is yours, and in the end, each action you make will come back to you, so adhering to any society’s milestone of success will make you feel incomplete.
Milestones Change Too
When we were kids, we had a list of things we wanted to do by the time we grew up, and as we entered adulthood, our perspective on life changed, and so did milestones. Each venture we take, makes us see things differently, as we work, go into relationships, end them too, etc, they shape the way we put milestones as means to success. You can wish for a certain thing to happen by a certain time and by the time you reach that age, your will has changed and you no longer need to have that wish.
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