Caroline Winslow
Layout Editor
Three weeks ago, I called my sister, who has four years on me, to complain about the fact I’m not where I should be in life. She giggled and informed me of some of her life experiences which I echo in this piece.
In your late teens and early 20s, there is so much happening around you, and it is so easy to compare yourself to others because there is no set idea of where you should be in your life. Last month, I was sitting in my bed scrolling through Instagram, and I counted five engagements of people that I grew up with, another ten dating “anniversary” posts from people my own age, and one wedding post from a girl I attended kindergarten with. Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy for all of them, but it got me thinking about where I am in my own life.
I am twenty, a junior in college, with no idea of what path I want to go down in life. At this point, my only goal is to graduate and get some sort of job. I know a lot of students at Sewanee who feel like this, but I also know a lot of students who have their whole lives planned out. I did come to college with ideas of what I wanted to do, but as I’ve grown and changed those plans went out the window. I wanted to become an investment banker, but I realized that I’m not too fond of full time desk jobs. I also debated going the sports route and trying to work my way up to a general manager for a baseball team, but I realized that may be unrealistic. There are also many people from where I grew up that didn’t choose college as their path but instead, got blue collar jobs straight out of highschool. They are doing incredibly well for themselves, and I often wonder if I should’ve taken a path like that instead.
When I discussed these things with my sister, she made the point that most of her friends didn’t get into relationships until after college and most of them only picked jobs out of necessity. One of them was married straight out of college, one became an engineer out of college, one went into the Navy to get medical school paid for, and my sister went to graduate school. It doesn’t matter how successful anyone looks in life because everyone is struggling in their own way.
All this to share with you, the reader, this point:
We are all different. We are all meant to do different things. There is not one certain path that is meant for everyone.
Do what makes you happy, and don’t try to keep up with the Joneses. In our late teens and early 20s, we have so much life left to live, so we shouldn’t take our time worrying about being in the wrong places in life. Instead, work hard, play hard, and love yourself and the people that are important in your life.