Figuring It Out

They say that when you’re young, it’s the best time in your life. It’s the time when you do the crazy things that when you’re chilling in the retirement home, you look back on it with great fondness. It’s also the most confusing, and perhaps the most awkward time of our lives. We are just getting our feet wet in the world, and don’t know what we want. Simply put, we are figuring it out.

                “We’re happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time; it’s miserable and magical”, sings Taylor Swift in her hit song 22. I feel like everyone in their late teens and early 20s can relate to those lyrics. We are on our own, without the crutches of our parents. However, we have many shoes to fit in. Everyone has an expectation as to what we should be. Our professors, significant others, friends, family and society have a list a mile of expectations of things that they want us to be. Needless to say, all of those roles can lead to anxiety to fill those shoes, and disappointment when we don’t.  It leaves us wondering, what do I want?

                Slowly, we are figuring it out. Little by little, we get the answers to the big questions that we ask of ourselves. Where is my place in the world? What will I do with my life? We become the person that we want to be, by figuring out what makes us happy. Some say that those expectations are a mixture of what others want for us result to our personality. Others think it’s when you graduate college, and actually get out there. I think that it’s when you figure what you want in life, such as what you want to be when you leave college. It’s when you figure out what you want, and what makes you happy.

                Journey once said “Only the young could say”. We are the beacon of hope, and we have the determination to bring about change. Sometimes, not knowing can be okay because even though we are writing in a blank notebook, unsure what we are going to fill it with. We are given a pen, and are expected to fill it with our stories, the stories that make us, well us. The answers can quickly to some. They are the ones who can start writing, and fill the pages with no problems. Others may need to take the time to think about what they want to fill it with, and then start writing. Both ways are okay.  

                With our future bright and shiny and determination in our eyes, we wonder what do only the young say? I say that we are tomorrow, and now more than ever we can make it a better place for the next generation of young people. I say we are slowly, but surely figuring it out.