Confessions of this "20-something"

This post is a little off topic from my usual posts.  I'm in the process now of finalizing another travel post about our most recent trip, it's just taking a little longer than expected.  Probably because I keep getting distracted by the Internet...
Which brings me to this current post.  It's one I wrote for my old blog, but never published.
On one of my (many) breaks between research and teaching, I, like most, scroll through Facebook.  Lately, I've seen a TON of posts about the 20-something generation.  This is what inspired my original post, and just reading yet another right now, I've decided to go ahead and share it with the world.

So, here it is.  This 20-something's thoughts on being 20-something:

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The term "twenty-something" seems to be a 'trending' term on the Internet.  Something that pop culture has made... well, popular.  This idea that your twenties are the time of your life: your chance to experience everything.  Those awkward years between adult-hood, and the crazy college partying phase you're expected to just give up when you receive your diploma.  You're still allowed to mess up, to try things out, or to go a little over the edge.  It's the "trial" years of becoming a functioning member of society.  Or so the media tells us.

I've seen many articles about what to do, or not to do, in your 20s.  Get married young, don't get married young, live abroad, start your own company, buy a house, don't settle down in one place, and the list goes on.  Literally, they're all lists of why you should, or shouldn't do the afore mentioned things, and much much more.

You know what I think, if anyone cares to hear it, is that this generation of "twenty-somethings" has a "grass is always greener" complex.  We've been raised in the generation of "participation awards" and an "A for effort" mentality.  We've always been told we could have whatever it is we put our mind to.  Well, guess what?  Now we're adults, expected to decide what it is we really want, and we're sitting here wondering why we can't have it all?  Why can't I have the perfect little house, with the amazing "pintrest-style" kitchen, reading nook, etc., and still travel the globe?  I don't mean to speak for an entire generation here, don't get me wrong.  The point is, when mass media is sending us mixed signals about what we're supposed to be doing with our lives, no wonder we so called "twenty-somethings" are turning back to the very vehicle that made us to vent our frustration.  Blogs, videos, articles, you name it, they all address the issue of us; what are the 20-somethings supposed to be doing NOW?  I am no better.  I am a child of the Internet.  I grew up in a time of AIM (AOL instant messenger) and text messaging, google, facebook, and myspace. And here I am, putting my inner thoughts out there for the world to read.

Do I love my life? OF COURSE! I'm getting to see and experience things a lot of people never even dream of.  But, do I still get a little ping of jealousy when I see my friends back in the States moving into their new homes, and starting a stable life with children and careers?  I'd be lying if I said no.  After a day of working and not even really getting to enjoy the amazing city I live in (because I spend so much time inside teaching that I don't get to actually see it OR the worst, because I walk past the same amazing sights and monuments everyday, that they've lost their allure), I wish I were coming home to my own place, not some place I'm renting, which still has my landlord's stuff in it.

The point is, I'm sure that my friends that are back in the States with their stable jobs, happy families, and their own homes, are looking at my life, wishing they could explore, "let go a little" and "take chances".  At the end of the day, we "twenty-somethings" want what we don't have.  But that's ok!  That's what drives us, pushes us, and makes us tick.  Some of us get married young, and some of us don't.  Some of us move to foreign countries, while some of us stay in the same state, right down the street from where we grew up.  The point is, all of us are feeling the same thing.  Who are we?  Did we make the right decision?  That's what it means to be a 20-something.  To finally realize that our lives have been fluff, and we're not going to have everything we want, because by nature, we're always going to want what we don't have.  It's the time in our lives when we learn who we really are, and who we're going to be.  We're going to question our decisions, and the decisions of our friends, we're going to get frustrated with ourselves, and with society for "making us choose this career" because it offered a better pay.  At the end of the day, this is all part of the process of being a child of our own generation.  We're finding our own way to find ourselves.

And I say, "to each his own" because we're all going through the same thing, just in different ways.

So, this blog is, in essence my way of sharing my "20-something" life with the world.  It's not better or worse than other's, but it's mine.  My day-to-day life may be different than some, but, I guarantee at the end of the day, I still have the same questions racing through my mind as so many others from my generation.