I've Spent My 20s One Way... I Don't Know Who I Am

I slumped back into the driver’s seat as I turned off the ignition. The hum of the engine, silent. Resting my neck on the worn-out, leather headrest I breathed in deeply, trying to muster up the energy for another day at work. Another day stifled up in the office. Another day feeling like life was passing by and I was stuck.

I couldn’t understand. Working with youth was all I thought I had wanted. Helping others walk deeper into their relationship with God seemed like it would be so fulfilling, so purpose-driven. I had done all the right things to get there too, checked all the right boxes. I had attended the university, done the “right” internships, earned the degree and landed the job. Upon graduating, I believed so deeply that I was on the right path...so certain that this was God’s call for me.

So why wasn’t I happy? Why did I feel so void and aimless, so generally let down by life?

I’d return to my empty apartment night after night thinking to myself ‘is this all there is…piles of paperwork and office politics.’ Where was the joy I had expected? I had followed the course just the way I was supposed to, so why did I feel so stuck?

I began to question every decision I had made. What if I had gotten it all the wrong? The degree. The job. The opportunities I passed up. Maybe I had made a huge mistake. Maybe all the passion and excitement I once had for my career was just a passing phase.

I was twenty-four and so discontent, and so tired of being discontent. I don’t know what exactly I had expected this season to be, but it certainly wasn’t this.

All the while, my friends were moving on, or so it seemed. The support system I once leaned on so heavily disappeared in an instant, carrying on with their own lives, scattered far from me.

I thought the 20s were supposed to be the best years of my life. So what was I missing?

Somewhere along the way, we’ve all been collectively sold this idea that our 20s will be the season in which we finally arrive. The golden age of our youth where there is freedom to explore, and boundless opportunities just waiting for us. Images flood our feed, selling us the idea that we can have it all and we can have it right now.

But that wasn’t the way my life looked…and perhaps it’s not yours either.

Maybe you are on your own, but not feeling quite settled. In the job, but it’s not quite what you thought. Perhaps, you’re feeling pressure to be further along financially, but the overdraft notice in your bank account says otherwise. Maybe you’re feeling the urge to take time to travel and “discover yourself,” yet the demands of your daily life prohibit you. You may be actively discerning a vocation to religious life, priesthood or marriage, or you may still be waiting on God to reveal a little more.

The pressure we often feel to have arrived in our 20s is immense. So what can we do in this season?

I challenge you to take a moment and think back to where you were five years ago? Reflect on how much you’ve grown and stretched since then. Aspects of life that felt as if they would never change have been long forgotten. With that in mind, we can look forward in hope, knowing that nothing lasts forever. The job won’t always feel like a dead end. Your social life won’t always be in flux. Finances won’t always remain the same. Your vocation won’t always be the giant, looming question on your heart.

Stop believing that everyone else around you has it all together. Let me assure you they don’t. And if it appears as if they do, I’d bet they’re trying to stake their identity in passing things instead of our Eternal Father. The truth is no one can have it all, all at once. Life is a series of unraveling and rediscovering who we are and Who we belong to. And we’ll be doing this til the very end.

Try shifting focus from why God has you in this season to how He is trying to reach out to you in this season? Our Good Father is always seeking you, always taking the initiative to grow into a deeper relationship with you. So how is He whispering to your heart right now? Maybe it’s the nudge to spend more time in adoration or frequenting daily Mass? Maybe He’s inviting you to stretch yourself to be more hospitable, building up a community with other like-minded men and women? Maybe He’s encouraging you to make more space for family or friends…the ones who are in a different season than you and need help or just companionship?

So life doesn’t look like we thought it might, but that doesn’t mean it's time wasted. Our Loving Father wastes nothing.

Every menial job, every broken relationship, every prayer whispered out to Him in the dark is thoughtfully crafted and worked together for our good.

As for me, if it weren’t for this crummy job and difficult season of life I don’t know if I would have ever pushed beyond my comfort zone. A little less than a year into this job and against all mainstream advice, I quit and moved to a foreign country to pursue a once in a lifetime mission opportunity. While this had always been a dream of mine, it never felt practical and so I pushed it aside. Still, God worked and unexpectedly opened a door. Leading me out of this job that made me so unhappy and onto a path…one that I never expected, full of twists and turns, but one that is so much better suited for me.

He is working in your life now, in this season, no matter how uncertain or challenging the present moment feels.

And as hard as it may be to accept, we must remember that we will never arrive. Life is never perfect and we will never have everything we want all at the same time. We may have once believed that, buying into that false narrative, but now is the moment to put away childish notions. Life is ever evolving, unraveling before our eyes. We are constantly growing in deeper knowledge of ourselves. And as we mature, so do our dreams for our lives. Just because we don’t have it all figured out, doesn’t mean there isn’t joy to be found in this moment.

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