Big Girl Status
Lately, I have been thinking about this change of responsibility in my life. I am really excited for graduate school as I have been going to orientations. There is one thing that I am starting to notice though. I am entering this phase of life called being a adult. I have been an adult since I was the age of 18. I left home and went to a college out of state and working on my bachelor's degree. When I was doing that, I still felt like a teenage in a lot of ways. I was in this awkward in between stage between an adult and teenager. It is called the emerging adult. We don't know what to call ourselves, so we created this name for our generation and the way we view ourselves.
Now as I enter my graduate program, I am realizing that this is the start of a new journey. It is a professional journey. It is a journey that leads to a actual career job. The kind of job that you have your butt off because you went to school and read lots of textbooks and did lots of internships. This is a new status for me. I like to call it the big girl status.
The start of this graduate program is going to be a no-play time. This program will be my life. Once I am done with my program, I am on the job hunt for a job that will hopefully be my career. It is big girl status. I was talking with my friend who is also in a MSW program. We were talking about our internships and the tasks we were given. We talked in our undergraduate courses about all the things we wanted to do with our education. This is our time to do them. We reached our goal. We have worked so hard to get where we are and we reached it. It is a surreal thing to think about.
Seeing how this has affected me helps me understand why its so hard for other people from 18-30 are struggling to identify themselves as adult. Most people identify themselves as a adult when they have a career, married and have children. These are the usual criteria for someone to call themselves an adult.
When you reach this milestones, it can be scary. You lose a lot of things but you gain a lot in return. You lose your playtime, freedom (in some ways), selfishness and time. When you become an adult, you gain responsibilities, your own family (hopefully) and are forced to be unselfish.
Taking on responsibility can be hard for an emerging adulthood. Whether it be graduate school, a relationship, marriage, children, career or community position, all of these take out of your playtime and force you to serve others instead of yourself. You then learn how to be unselfish with your time as your actions influence so many other people around you. People depend on you to be reliable. Going from having your freedom to being expected to be reliable can be a tough transition.
I am not trying to say that it is okay to take 150000 years to make a decision regarding your future when you are 18-30. I think its a problem of how long we are taking to move forward with our life. Becoming an adult was quicker and not as hard as a transition in our parent's generation. There are so many factors for this change. Knowing how hard it is to become a adult now will help out as we try to understand why it takes some longer than others to move on from their life.
As I have been thinking about my change, It's been hard to accept it. I don't want to lose my youth and spontaneous nature. I don't want to lose my sense of humor and fun natured self. Sometimes I feel like people think becoming an adult is boring because it means that you no longer have fun. You can't do the same things as you did when you were 18.
What if we change our definition of fun though? Our fun will no longer be joking around about stupid things until 5 in the morning. If we do that, we will regret that decision when we have school or work the next morning. Our fun is a more "mature" fun. We will work hard and then play harder after the work is done. We will find our satisfaction and joy in others instead of ourselves. Seeing all my friends get married has been interesting to me. Their life is so different than me. Their life is about a partnership with their spouse. It is about being united as a family. It is about making sure that their children's needs are met. They are happy and have fun when their loved ones are having fun. It is a fun based on doing a job they have completed school and training to have.
In the end, I think it is hardest to let go our selfish wants and needs. When we realize that becoming an adult, means sacrificing our time and services to others, it is hard to transition. In my opinion, developing this unselfish attitude is probably one of the hardest things we learn to do. We learn it through taking responsibilities and putting others priorities first. Maybe some of us will learn the importance of taking these steps as we figuring out our lifes.
Cheers to being a adult, or I call it "big girl"!
Now as I enter my graduate program, I am realizing that this is the start of a new journey. It is a professional journey. It is a journey that leads to a actual career job. The kind of job that you have your butt off because you went to school and read lots of textbooks and did lots of internships. This is a new status for me. I like to call it the big girl status.
The start of this graduate program is going to be a no-play time. This program will be my life. Once I am done with my program, I am on the job hunt for a job that will hopefully be my career. It is big girl status. I was talking with my friend who is also in a MSW program. We were talking about our internships and the tasks we were given. We talked in our undergraduate courses about all the things we wanted to do with our education. This is our time to do them. We reached our goal. We have worked so hard to get where we are and we reached it. It is a surreal thing to think about.
Seeing how this has affected me helps me understand why its so hard for other people from 18-30 are struggling to identify themselves as adult. Most people identify themselves as a adult when they have a career, married and have children. These are the usual criteria for someone to call themselves an adult.
When you reach this milestones, it can be scary. You lose a lot of things but you gain a lot in return. You lose your playtime, freedom (in some ways), selfishness and time. When you become an adult, you gain responsibilities, your own family (hopefully) and are forced to be unselfish.
Taking on responsibility can be hard for an emerging adulthood. Whether it be graduate school, a relationship, marriage, children, career or community position, all of these take out of your playtime and force you to serve others instead of yourself. You then learn how to be unselfish with your time as your actions influence so many other people around you. People depend on you to be reliable. Going from having your freedom to being expected to be reliable can be a tough transition.
I am not trying to say that it is okay to take 150000 years to make a decision regarding your future when you are 18-30. I think its a problem of how long we are taking to move forward with our life. Becoming an adult was quicker and not as hard as a transition in our parent's generation. There are so many factors for this change. Knowing how hard it is to become a adult now will help out as we try to understand why it takes some longer than others to move on from their life.
As I have been thinking about my change, It's been hard to accept it. I don't want to lose my youth and spontaneous nature. I don't want to lose my sense of humor and fun natured self. Sometimes I feel like people think becoming an adult is boring because it means that you no longer have fun. You can't do the same things as you did when you were 18.
What if we change our definition of fun though? Our fun will no longer be joking around about stupid things until 5 in the morning. If we do that, we will regret that decision when we have school or work the next morning. Our fun is a more "mature" fun. We will work hard and then play harder after the work is done. We will find our satisfaction and joy in others instead of ourselves. Seeing all my friends get married has been interesting to me. Their life is so different than me. Their life is about a partnership with their spouse. It is about being united as a family. It is about making sure that their children's needs are met. They are happy and have fun when their loved ones are having fun. It is a fun based on doing a job they have completed school and training to have.
In the end, I think it is hardest to let go our selfish wants and needs. When we realize that becoming an adult, means sacrificing our time and services to others, it is hard to transition. In my opinion, developing this unselfish attitude is probably one of the hardest things we learn to do. We learn it through taking responsibilities and putting others priorities first. Maybe some of us will learn the importance of taking these steps as we figuring out our lifes.
Cheers to being a adult, or I call it "big girl"!
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