Even if New York were paying just a dime a dozen for dumb dreamers like me, the city would go bankrupt in twenty-five minutes.
“Most of us, during this period of exploration are vague, if not void or ideas of what we want to do. We generally begin by defining what we don’t want to do.”
With the help of our knowledge bank, you can choose for variations in your new neighborhood by:
But to zero in on the best place for you you’ll have to visit and schedule time to explore potential new homes in a region.
Oh, darn!
Adult Life Stages
How can we use each life crisis as an opportunity for creative change?
To grow to our full potential?
As we go through in our 20s, 30s, 40s, and beyond?
Sometime between the ages of 18 and 22 years old we strike out on our own.
For some of us, we leave our family, home and neighborhood to attend college.
Others feel patriotic and volunteer to join the Army, Navy, Marines or Coast Guard.
And still others pick up odd jobs, juggle different shifts and gig economy opportunities.
A barista. Or, a ski lift operator. Or an In-N-Out burger artist.
John Hodgman from in his book, “Vacationland: True Stories From Painful Beaches,” recalled the magnetism of the mundane:
“I loved work because it was like travel: a chance to meet different people and inhabit their worlds. So the more tedious and unengaging the work was, the better, because it left more brain space for observation and inquiry, and also because I’m pretty lazy.”
In California during the Great Recession more 18-20 year olds followed the strategy of their parents who were footing college education bills.
They lived at home (still!) and attended a community college to earn their two-year associates degree stuffed with college credits, but at a much lower cost than tuition-plus-room-and-board at a university campus.
When they finally transferred to a university or college they only had two-years of study left to complete their bachelors degree.
At any rate, no matter which initial steps you take, when you graduate from high school you really, really want to strike out on your own.
You’re so eager to pull up roots and exert your own independence.
You can’t wait to leave your parents and their rules behind.
All that nagging.
Those stupid chores.
It’s time to move on.
If not physically, at least in your mind.
Think “That 70s Show” friends coming of age in Wisconsin.
Marc Maron, with Brendan McDonald, his WTF podcast producer, published a book, “Waiting for the Punch” based on over 800 interviews.
In it President Obama recounted what it was like for him in his early twenties:
“I think at that age you’re still trying to figure out, “Who are you? How do I live? What’s my code? What’s important to me? What’s not important to me?” You’re sorting through all kinds of contradictions.”
You’re testing out your parents’ spoken (and unspoken) beliefs, to figure out which ones to keep and which ones to modify and which ones to throw out.
President Obama continued:
Then at a certain point right around twenty, right around my sophomore year, I started figuring out that a lot of the ideas that I had taken on about being a rebel, or being a tough guy, or being cool were really not me.
They were just things that I was trying on because I was insecure or I was a kid. That’s an important moment in my life, although also a scary one, because then you start realizing,
“Well, I actually have to figure out what I really do believe and what is important and who am I really.”
“Then right around twenty you start realizing honesty, kindness, hard work, responsibility, looking after people — they’re actually pretty good values.”
John Hodgman said:
I listened to music on the Walkman I borrowed from my roommate without telling him, and when the batteries wore down, I would listen to AM radio. That’s when I first heard Rush Limbaugh and began to understand that not everyone absolutely agreed with me about everything.
How does what you’ve been taught actually apply to new encounters and experiences.
Gail Sheehy in “Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life” a summary of research by Erik Ericson and Roger Gould writes:
The tasks of this passage are to locate ourselves in a peer group role, a sex role, and anticipated occupation, an ideology or world view. Even as one part of us seeks to be an individual, another longs to restore the safety and comfort of merging with another.
Most of us, during this period of exploration are vague, if not void or ideas of what we want to do.
We generally begin by defining what we don’t want to do.”
Chris Erskine, author of two books and a weekly syndicated columnist for the “Los Angeles Times, ” describes the lives of his two Millennial daughters in “The Middle Ages”
A year after graduating, the boyfriend admits he misses college so much that he can’t even visit his younger brother back in school. His life is good, but not college good. “What’s your major?” is still the best opening line of all time. Once you leave college, Thursday nights are never the same. You know, you can’t force this getting-to-know-you stuff. Either he fits or he doesn’t. In high school, the kid played football. In college, rugby.
John Hodgman, in another passage described what it was like trying to make it in New York:
It turns out that New York made no arrangements to receive me. No jobs were reserved for recent graduates with a degree in literary theory; no skylit garrets had been set aside in the West Village for me to think thoughts about books in. Even if New York were paying just a dime a dozen for dumb dreamers like me, the city would go bankrupt in twenty-five minutes.
Chris Erskine speaking from his perspective of raising three adult children and a teenage son wrote:
“Here’s the thing: Constant as the surf, our kids will come, and our kids will go. Helps to have friends around. Helps to laugh. Or to hear that such departures lead to wonderful freshman years and terrific homecomings. And to Thanksgivings you’ll never forget.”
Not that they care, but 18-22 year olds don’t show up on demographic lifestyle dashboards until later in their 20s.
They’re simply counted in with the wide variety of family lifestyles.
It’s after they wrestle with the challenges of their Trying Twenties, ages 20 to 30 years old, that we find them renting in neighborhoods.
They can be found in Wireless Resorters, High Country Eagles and Permanent Temporaries communities.
This is a 10-year period when as a generation they begin to segment into seven lifestyles within the “Striving Singles” category.
Part Two: Failing at Growing Up