Ten Years
This is a post inspired by all of my friends who have recently spoken about their fears and insecurities regarding their futures, their natures, and their beliefs.
I have spoken out before against the compulsion felt by many young adults that says They Must Know What They Want To Do With Their Lives And How To Accomplish This. Not only this, but the belief instilled in them that they must have something to show for their efforts of life so far--a sort of mark of progress that the world can use to judge where their lives will go from there. In other words, if the person in question does not have at least some drive, direction, or career, they will never have these things. This is pounded into us explicitly and implicitly, particularly around our adolescent years. The pressure to make decisions that will "affect our entire futures" seeps into all our thoughts. We become cautious, afraid to make a leap in case it turns out horribly, horribly wrong. We become timid, thinking that if we do something that could be considered frivolous by others that we will be scorned by our peers and betters. We become afraid to be anything but consistent, out of concern that we aren't being productive enough.
This is so amazingly incorrect and harmful that it can almost induce a rage in me. People talk about "making mistakes" and "experimenting" for a person's 20s, but this isn't the answer at all for so many people. They don't always want to go out there and fuck up their lives, or try to pretend that someday they won't feel the effects of living too carefree an existence in their youth. For some, they look to their mothers and fathers who grew up through the 60s, the 70s, and even the 80s, and believe that being too "wild" and "carefree" will only cause major problems later on, especially in forcing decisions about work, children, and marriage. For others, it's not appealing at all, regardless of what consequences there may or may not be.
In truth, these encouragements to "get out there" and "see the world" and such are just the same thing as above: a path meant to show that you're doing something to find out who and what you'll be. To say that you went out into the world and had wacky adventures, and crazy mishaps is to still say that you did SOMETHING with your 20s. You have stories to tell, and if they eventually leave you at 52 still working a job that gives you no sense of meaning, or purpose, and was never what you really wanted to do, well...at least you're productive. And that's always the magic word: productivity. Doing something with your life. Not allowing life to happen to you, or being present in the moment of your life, but doing something with life.
So you make the decisions you think you should make. You go to college because that's The Way. You work the office job because that's The Way. You "reach for the stars" because that is The Way. And if you deviate from this, if you don't do something while you're young, something to talk about, then you are already a failure.
This has to stop.
We are only 20-something. We are so young. So very, very, very young. We only remember around 15 years of our lives, and even then, at best we remember clearly about 10 of those years. Ten years. That's really all the time we've been who we are. In so many ways, we are only 10 years old.
In some cases, being 23 that means we're near the end of our lives, or we will be in just a few short years. Disease, cancer, genetic mutations, etc can all shorten our life spans dramatically. For these people, it's not about setting up the long game, it's about finding what they can do right here and now to make their life what they want it to be.
But, for the rest of us who don't know we're going to die soon, we can't keep living like this. We don't need to know what we're going to do in the next 10 years, or try to scramble to find something that will define our future, or define ourselves.
So much can happen in 10 years. So much HAS happened in ten years. Not all of it is good, but not all of it is bad. We tend to look toward those who live in a spotlight, and think that they must have always been secure in the knowledge of what was going to happen to them. The truth is, no one has any idea. We don't know if we're going to be famous, or respected, or happy, or even ALIVE in ten years.
Ten years ago, I was only 13-years-old. I was in middle school still, and I was looking forward to going to Europe. I was learning Spanish, and very happy with the language, and rather looked down on French. I had become interested in learning Japanese, vaguely, but still believed that I'd be better off trying to learn Chinese. I believed strongly in God (though not the Christian God). I didn't have any close friends, though I was trying to be friends with my peers, and I was just beginning to realize how vast the online world truly was, and what potential it was filled with.
Ten years ago, Patrick Rothfuss was still a man who had worked on an opus for years, and had been rejected over and over by publishing houses. He was working at his local college where he had spent 9 years as an undergrad, and several more years as a graduate student, and never had any reason to suspect that it would still take another 5 and a half years for his book to be accepted.
Ten years ago, Stephanie Meyer was a nobody. Just another Mormon housewife with another baby on the way, ideas of books or writing or fame not even a part of her daily existence, let alone urban fiction, which was still barely a sub-genre in Fantasy at all.
Ten years ago, Joss Whedon was beginning to shoot Firefly, which he felt was going to be the best and most successful show of his career.
Ten years ago, Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe were little kids in their first big roles, whom no one had heard of prior to them being cast in the first Harry Potter movie.
Ten years ago, Britney Spears was a rising star, having just released her second album, and it seemed like she would become the next Madonna, going strong as an icon for decades.
A lot of shit happens in ten years. People and things that should have worked out, or looked like they would work out, crashed and burned. Other people were in complete obscurity, having no idea that their big break was just around the proverbial corner. It doesn't seem like much, but that's how it works. You don't know what you're going to be--you can only know what you are. And what you are isn't always what you will always be.
There are times when we look around our lives and see only stagnation, or the bitter taste of unfilled expectations/dreams/aspirations. Things sometimes don't work out the way we thought, or the way we wanted. It's hard to keep going forward with an attitude that believes that we will get what we want. Who wants to write a blog that no one will read? (Ten years ago, Allie Brosh of Hypberbole and a Half had never thought of writing a blog.) Who wants to try and work on a labor of love, knowing that they're only mediocre at best? (Ten years ago, Jeph Jacque of Questionable Content, a popular webcomic well into it's 8th year, couldn't draw stick figures worth shit, and knew that he would never be an incredible artist, but that he still had something to offer.) Who wants to believe that someday they will be acknowledged for their work? (Ten years ago, David Seidler had only just begun to think about writing a screenplay about the royal family. Seidler is the writer behind The King's Speech, winner of the crapton awards this year, and is 74 years old. It's his first big award.)
Who wants to be done with everything in their life at 40? If you live even just to 75, you're still only just half-way there. Who wants to aim to try and carve out a path in their 20s that they will need to follow in order to be a Success Story when they are in their 50s? We just don't know what it will be like, to be us in 50 or 60 years. We don't know what will happen to us, or what experience will shape an idea we've had for a decade. In ten years, I could be a household name. In ten years, I could be the ordinary person who is friends with a famous comedian, a famous psychologist photographer, a famous judge, a famous social reformer, a famous inventor. In ten years, everyone I know could have changed their careers radically, and pursued jobs as a farmer, a high government official, a speech therapist for Cambodians, a married partner to a member of the British royal family.....
My point is to embrace the fact that we don't know what is to come. Not knowing means that if you want something to happen, you have to give it a try, for as long as it interests you to do so. Don't just think that you have to beat at a dead horse for as long as it takes before someone says, "ZOMG! LOOK AT HIM BEATING THE HORSE!!!!" or get recognition for your efforts, or even happiness. Work for the things that matter to you. If you don't HAVE something that matters to you, I strongly suggest that you look for it. If you have a story in your head that you can't help but write out, then do it. If it makes you feel better to keep trying to get it published every few years, do that. If you want to be a comedian, or an actress, or a psychologist, or a translator, or a diplomat, or a dentist assistant, or television producer, or an organic farmer, or anything else....then try for it.
If you don't know what you want to be in 10 years THAT. IS. FINE. No, in fact, it's great. It means that you have an adventure waiting for you, and you should know it. You can better acknowledge that you really have no clue what will happen in the future. Ten years from now, you could be a Chief of Police who pushes for major reforms for the entire police system. Ten years from now, you could be an activist working to help victims of fistula in the Congo.
But, don't try to predict what you'll want in 10 years to the point of despair. Do what you want to do NOW. Here. If you don't like it, then CHANGE IT. Do whatever you can. I acknowledge that outside factors play a much bigger factor than most people like to admit--after all, poverty and survival determine many decisions, big and small, that can keep you chained to a job, a location, a way of life. But, the reality is...you have no idea what's going to make the difference. One year you are a waitress in a cafe with no prospects, but a story in your head that you really want to get down on paper. The next, you are JK Rowling, and your books are selling millions. One year you are a man of mixed descent trying to change the politics around you, relatively unknown. The next, you are Barack Obama and the first African American president.
You may need to work hard at it. You may put everything you have into it and yes, you still might fail. But. You might succeed. You may be 74 before you're acknowledged. You may be rejected from a publisher for 14 years. You may strike gold on your first try. If it's something you really want to do, then even when it is hard, you'll find a way to keep at it.
Find the thing you want to do. Then do it. Don't let too many things get in your way, including your responsibilities. After all, sometimes it is only when we experience our deepest, darkest moment, feel our most painful regrets, and make the most difficult decisions that we have anything worth saying, or anything worth doing.
And if you change your mind, and decide it's not worth it...that's okay. It's fine. Move along, do something else. Part of life is knowing when to give up a dream, and when to pursue it. When it stops being a dream, and just becomes the thing that you do because you've been doing it for so long, that's when it's time to give it up. Follow your dreams, not your habits.
Don't give up.
This post is dedicated to Milly, Sara, Anji, Brian, Leah, Lynette, Justin, every person who has felt the pressure to decide here and now what their lives will become. And most of all, this is dedicatd to all the younger versions of myself who have felt lost and alone, unsure of what will ever become of my life.
I have spoken out before against the compulsion felt by many young adults that says They Must Know What They Want To Do With Their Lives And How To Accomplish This. Not only this, but the belief instilled in them that they must have something to show for their efforts of life so far--a sort of mark of progress that the world can use to judge where their lives will go from there. In other words, if the person in question does not have at least some drive, direction, or career, they will never have these things. This is pounded into us explicitly and implicitly, particularly around our adolescent years. The pressure to make decisions that will "affect our entire futures" seeps into all our thoughts. We become cautious, afraid to make a leap in case it turns out horribly, horribly wrong. We become timid, thinking that if we do something that could be considered frivolous by others that we will be scorned by our peers and betters. We become afraid to be anything but consistent, out of concern that we aren't being productive enough.
This is so amazingly incorrect and harmful that it can almost induce a rage in me. People talk about "making mistakes" and "experimenting" for a person's 20s, but this isn't the answer at all for so many people. They don't always want to go out there and fuck up their lives, or try to pretend that someday they won't feel the effects of living too carefree an existence in their youth. For some, they look to their mothers and fathers who grew up through the 60s, the 70s, and even the 80s, and believe that being too "wild" and "carefree" will only cause major problems later on, especially in forcing decisions about work, children, and marriage. For others, it's not appealing at all, regardless of what consequences there may or may not be.
In truth, these encouragements to "get out there" and "see the world" and such are just the same thing as above: a path meant to show that you're doing something to find out who and what you'll be. To say that you went out into the world and had wacky adventures, and crazy mishaps is to still say that you did SOMETHING with your 20s. You have stories to tell, and if they eventually leave you at 52 still working a job that gives you no sense of meaning, or purpose, and was never what you really wanted to do, well...at least you're productive. And that's always the magic word: productivity. Doing something with your life. Not allowing life to happen to you, or being present in the moment of your life, but doing something with life.
So you make the decisions you think you should make. You go to college because that's The Way. You work the office job because that's The Way. You "reach for the stars" because that is The Way. And if you deviate from this, if you don't do something while you're young, something to talk about, then you are already a failure.
This has to stop.
We are only 20-something. We are so young. So very, very, very young. We only remember around 15 years of our lives, and even then, at best we remember clearly about 10 of those years. Ten years. That's really all the time we've been who we are. In so many ways, we are only 10 years old.
In some cases, being 23 that means we're near the end of our lives, or we will be in just a few short years. Disease, cancer, genetic mutations, etc can all shorten our life spans dramatically. For these people, it's not about setting up the long game, it's about finding what they can do right here and now to make their life what they want it to be.
But, for the rest of us who don't know we're going to die soon, we can't keep living like this. We don't need to know what we're going to do in the next 10 years, or try to scramble to find something that will define our future, or define ourselves.
So much can happen in 10 years. So much HAS happened in ten years. Not all of it is good, but not all of it is bad. We tend to look toward those who live in a spotlight, and think that they must have always been secure in the knowledge of what was going to happen to them. The truth is, no one has any idea. We don't know if we're going to be famous, or respected, or happy, or even ALIVE in ten years.
Ten years ago, I was only 13-years-old. I was in middle school still, and I was looking forward to going to Europe. I was learning Spanish, and very happy with the language, and rather looked down on French. I had become interested in learning Japanese, vaguely, but still believed that I'd be better off trying to learn Chinese. I believed strongly in God (though not the Christian God). I didn't have any close friends, though I was trying to be friends with my peers, and I was just beginning to realize how vast the online world truly was, and what potential it was filled with.
Ten years ago, Patrick Rothfuss was still a man who had worked on an opus for years, and had been rejected over and over by publishing houses. He was working at his local college where he had spent 9 years as an undergrad, and several more years as a graduate student, and never had any reason to suspect that it would still take another 5 and a half years for his book to be accepted.
Ten years ago, Stephanie Meyer was a nobody. Just another Mormon housewife with another baby on the way, ideas of books or writing or fame not even a part of her daily existence, let alone urban fiction, which was still barely a sub-genre in Fantasy at all.
Ten years ago, Joss Whedon was beginning to shoot Firefly, which he felt was going to be the best and most successful show of his career.
Ten years ago, Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe were little kids in their first big roles, whom no one had heard of prior to them being cast in the first Harry Potter movie.
Ten years ago, Britney Spears was a rising star, having just released her second album, and it seemed like she would become the next Madonna, going strong as an icon for decades.
A lot of shit happens in ten years. People and things that should have worked out, or looked like they would work out, crashed and burned. Other people were in complete obscurity, having no idea that their big break was just around the proverbial corner. It doesn't seem like much, but that's how it works. You don't know what you're going to be--you can only know what you are. And what you are isn't always what you will always be.
There are times when we look around our lives and see only stagnation, or the bitter taste of unfilled expectations/dreams/aspirations. Things sometimes don't work out the way we thought, or the way we wanted. It's hard to keep going forward with an attitude that believes that we will get what we want. Who wants to write a blog that no one will read? (Ten years ago, Allie Brosh of Hypberbole and a Half had never thought of writing a blog.) Who wants to try and work on a labor of love, knowing that they're only mediocre at best? (Ten years ago, Jeph Jacque of Questionable Content, a popular webcomic well into it's 8th year, couldn't draw stick figures worth shit, and knew that he would never be an incredible artist, but that he still had something to offer.) Who wants to believe that someday they will be acknowledged for their work? (Ten years ago, David Seidler had only just begun to think about writing a screenplay about the royal family. Seidler is the writer behind The King's Speech, winner of the crapton awards this year, and is 74 years old. It's his first big award.)
Who wants to be done with everything in their life at 40? If you live even just to 75, you're still only just half-way there. Who wants to aim to try and carve out a path in their 20s that they will need to follow in order to be a Success Story when they are in their 50s? We just don't know what it will be like, to be us in 50 or 60 years. We don't know what will happen to us, or what experience will shape an idea we've had for a decade. In ten years, I could be a household name. In ten years, I could be the ordinary person who is friends with a famous comedian, a famous psychologist photographer, a famous judge, a famous social reformer, a famous inventor. In ten years, everyone I know could have changed their careers radically, and pursued jobs as a farmer, a high government official, a speech therapist for Cambodians, a married partner to a member of the British royal family.....
My point is to embrace the fact that we don't know what is to come. Not knowing means that if you want something to happen, you have to give it a try, for as long as it interests you to do so. Don't just think that you have to beat at a dead horse for as long as it takes before someone says, "ZOMG! LOOK AT HIM BEATING THE HORSE!!!!" or get recognition for your efforts, or even happiness. Work for the things that matter to you. If you don't HAVE something that matters to you, I strongly suggest that you look for it. If you have a story in your head that you can't help but write out, then do it. If it makes you feel better to keep trying to get it published every few years, do that. If you want to be a comedian, or an actress, or a psychologist, or a translator, or a diplomat, or a dentist assistant, or television producer, or an organic farmer, or anything else....then try for it.
If you don't know what you want to be in 10 years THAT. IS. FINE. No, in fact, it's great. It means that you have an adventure waiting for you, and you should know it. You can better acknowledge that you really have no clue what will happen in the future. Ten years from now, you could be a Chief of Police who pushes for major reforms for the entire police system. Ten years from now, you could be an activist working to help victims of fistula in the Congo.
But, don't try to predict what you'll want in 10 years to the point of despair. Do what you want to do NOW. Here. If you don't like it, then CHANGE IT. Do whatever you can. I acknowledge that outside factors play a much bigger factor than most people like to admit--after all, poverty and survival determine many decisions, big and small, that can keep you chained to a job, a location, a way of life. But, the reality is...you have no idea what's going to make the difference. One year you are a waitress in a cafe with no prospects, but a story in your head that you really want to get down on paper. The next, you are JK Rowling, and your books are selling millions. One year you are a man of mixed descent trying to change the politics around you, relatively unknown. The next, you are Barack Obama and the first African American president.
You may need to work hard at it. You may put everything you have into it and yes, you still might fail. But. You might succeed. You may be 74 before you're acknowledged. You may be rejected from a publisher for 14 years. You may strike gold on your first try. If it's something you really want to do, then even when it is hard, you'll find a way to keep at it.
Find the thing you want to do. Then do it. Don't let too many things get in your way, including your responsibilities. After all, sometimes it is only when we experience our deepest, darkest moment, feel our most painful regrets, and make the most difficult decisions that we have anything worth saying, or anything worth doing.
And if you change your mind, and decide it's not worth it...that's okay. It's fine. Move along, do something else. Part of life is knowing when to give up a dream, and when to pursue it. When it stops being a dream, and just becomes the thing that you do because you've been doing it for so long, that's when it's time to give it up. Follow your dreams, not your habits.
Don't give up.
This post is dedicated to Milly, Sara, Anji, Brian, Leah, Lynette, Justin, every person who has felt the pressure to decide here and now what their lives will become. And most of all, this is dedicatd to all the younger versions of myself who have felt lost and alone, unsure of what will ever become of my life.