Eventually we all come to a point in our lives where it is time to settle down. Time to get married. Time to buy a house. Time to have a family. Settling can be a good thing. It is a logical progression in life.
There is, however, one problem with this logical progression. The problem is that most people start working toward it at a young age. They start keeping their eyes open for the person who is supposed to be “the one” in their early twenties. They take a job they may not necessarily like just so that they can start saving money to be able to afford the cost of settling down one day. They don’t really have the opportunity to figure themselves out before they start moving toward the goal that most people strive for: having a rich family life.
But how is it possibly to truly know what you want out of life when you are so busy striving for what it is you think you are supposed to be doing?
Most people say college is the time where you really find yourself. But how is college where you find yourself when you are doing exactly what you have been doing for the last fourteen years of your life (aka going to school)? You are still doing what you have been doing, going down the path that you are supposedly supposed to be going down.
The day you graduate is the day you truly have the opportunity to figure yourself out, to sink or swim in a world in which you are completely and utterly unfamiliar with. And the day you graduate is the day many people just start going through the motions of what they think they are supposed to be doing. They just drift along with the current. They don’t allow themselves to be overwhelmed by the possibilities life has to offer. They don’t allow themselves to be scared senseless by a new adventure. They just keep drifting.
The problem with this is that you can never truly know what you want until you let yourself get overwhelmed by possibilities. You can never figure out how strong you can be until you let yourself be truly scared by a new adventure. You cannot know yourself until you push yourself to your limits. And you cannot push yourself to your limits if you just go with the flow and do what it is it seems you should be doing.
So, before you settle down and start striving for what it is you think you want, stop and think. Be overwhelmed. Be scared. Push yourself to your limits. Whether it be traveling, taking a job that provides virtually no security, or moving home to regroup and plan your next move—do it. Take time to be alone and define what you want next. If you don’t, you may end up waking up one day wishing your life had turned out differently or that you had done something you didn’t get to do by just going with the flow and following the typical motions of life. Settling down can be fantastic and is never a bad thing if you have taken the time to figure out yourself and what you want.
