I read a magazine article today that I really wish I hadn't. It was about how young adults, especially University graduates, are increasingly opting to live with their parents. I think if I was faced with the prospect of moving home after University, I'd not graduate until I'd done at least ten Master's degrees.
A week never goes the way I think it will, so there's no way any of us can plan where the rest of our lives will take us.
It made me wonder - who decides what to do and when in life?
Obviously, we go to school, and then we go to University or we get a job...but then what? What are those years in the middle meant to be filled out with? You know, the years in our late twenties, which seems to be when people travel, go after their dream job...or, just simply..don't.
And when it comes to the generic term I like to complain about a lot on my blog - settling down - why is it that most people seem to get married and have children around the same time? Okay, fertility and health reasons aside - why do the majority of us follow similar paths in life at the same time? People buy different cars, different houses and have different friends, but we mostly seem to have the same goals and simple pleasures. Would it be disgustingly generalising of me to say that most of the British population leave education, get a job, work their way up or change jobs, get on the property ladder, shoot out a few babies, and then retire and die? That sounded less depressing in my head, I can assure you.
It seems that we either follow the herd and settle down, or we resist the norm and we don't follow by example. I'd quite like to know - what is the average life like? And how do we resist doing things because it's what's expected of us? I'm not exactly saying I'd like to live in a tree and have monkeys that I call my 'babies', but I'd like to act outside of the box for a bit of my life.
Without meaning to sound like an old man, it seems that life goes by so quickly, and no one tells you to slow down and savour it. My first year of University literally sprinted by, and although people warned me it would, I wish somebody had really, really told me to savour it.
So as much as I want to live outside of the box, there doesn't seem to be much point of doing so without really opening my eyes as I do it.
Oh dear me, this is true. It's sad to think that sometimes, on a larger scale, we're not quite as individual as we'd like to be or as we think we are. Sure, like you said, we buy different cars, different clothes, different houses etc. but I think you have a good point in saying that we all follow the same pattern.
ReplyDeleteI'm planning to travel after my degree, ideally I want to get a job in northern Norway or Sweden for a short while (a year, 18 months) and work out in the arctic circle doing something incredibly exciting and heroic, but I can't even make myself get out of bed on time in the morning. I was supposed to getting up about thirty minutes ago. Dear me.