The 20 Something Years
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Attribution Unknown
The Quarter-life Crisis is the amalgamation of doubt, confusion, and fear that comes with facing an overwhelming set of identity issues and societal expectations at once. - Christine Hasler, Twenty Something Twenty Everything
Once again, I find myself in the Bermuda triangle of the 20 Something Years. This is my second time hitting the quarter-life crisis, so it's time to write up some instructions for finding our way out should this occur for you or me in the future.
Confronting our identity demons in our twenties rather than waiting until our forties or fifties, means I don't think we're going to have a midlife crisis. - Alexandra Robbins, It's A Wonderful Lie
Step #1: Read. Books, blogs, and the Bible.
The Bible reminds us that there's "nothing new under the sun," (Ecclesiastes 1:9) which means others have gone through whatever it is we're facing, have made it out, and most likely about it.
With 40% of twenty-somethings moving back in with their parents at some point, and a third of us moving annually, I know I'm not the only one feeling in-between as the figurative age 30-deadline looms closer {source}.
I'm a grateful twenty-something. I've lived in my little Denver Dreamhome for three years, I've got a solid career, a community of incredible people that anchor me and move in my life with both the dependability and the force of an army, and still yet, here I am feeling stuck like my life is not moving forward. Somehow I stalled and I can't change gears. It's like watching Bill Murray's Groundhog Day, or a reality TV marathon you've seen before, but can't manage to get up and change the channel.
Here's some reassurance from Relevant Magazine and two of my all-time favorites, Donald Miller and Bob Goff:
In our culture, your 20s are about getting educated, your 30s are about accumulating resources (becoming financially sustainable), your 40s are about building (families, houses, careers, ministries, impact), and your 50s are about enjoying what you’ve built (and perhaps pressuring your kids to get married and make babies). He did not intend this as advice, he was only making an observation. But I tend to think it’s a pretty good path. It takes time to build influence, to establish connections and to build confidence in others at your abilities {source}. - Bob Goff
As I read and I pray through this, I'm realizing that this isn't just the part where we find out who we are, but also the time when we become who we're meant to be. There are many roads in life, but there are no shortcuts in the journey of becoming.
The journey back toward faith came in flashes and moments and entirely though pain…I loved those years. Those years made me believe in the journey and respect it. I know what it did in me, and I don’t take it lightly. I have some very sobering scars and memories that I carry with me as reminders of that season. They remind me how dangerous that path is, and how beautiful. - Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines
Step #2: Spend time doing the things that make you who you are.
What lights you up? More on this here.
Step #3: Spend time with people who remind you who you are and who you're becoming.
Equally as important as the journey itself, is who we travel with. For me, maybe this season isn't so much like Groundhog Day, but more like an episode of Friends. We sit in coffee shops, we laugh and learn with each other, we do life together, loving each other into our futures.
There is no friend like the friends who walks beside you without flinching no matter what appears in the path of life. God doesn't (usually) appear in a flaming bush in our path, He appears reflected out of the people He so graciously sends us.
"I don't care whose DNA has combined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching, they are your family."
{Jim Butcher}
Step #4: With steadfast faith and mad hope, believe that change is coming for you.
In Exodus, the people of God were wandering aimlessly in the wilderness, and God appeared as a cloud above them, guiding them and assuring his people he was with them. In that time, in an agricultural society, rain clouds where not a symbol of hard times, but of growth and new life.
If there is a cloud over our lives, we can rest assured that God is on the move in them.
He will revive us, He will restore us.
Let us press on acknowledging the Lord;
As surely as the sun rises, He will appear;
He will come like the rain.
{Hosea, 6:1-3}
Every time we press through that lost feeling, we acknowledge that we trust God to find us right where we are. Let us pray, and ask for the faith to keep trusting that God is good, faithful to His word, and exactly who He says He is.
Wherever you are on journey, remember we may not know where it ends, but we know how...love wins.