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\u201cYou can do anything you put your mind to!\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cThe sky\u2019s the limit!\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re the best!\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cFollow your dreams!\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
Did you hear these kinds of things growing up? Your parents sure meant well. They really felt like you were the most special creature to arrive on planet earth \u2013 a beautiful boy full of limitless possibilities. You could do anything in the world!<\/p>\n
But now that that boy is grown up and in his twenties, you might find that such encouragement has become more paralyzing than motivating. If your possibilities really are endless, how will you ever decide which path to take and what to do with your life?<\/p>\n
Meg Jay is a clinical psychologist who specializes in counseling young patients who are struggling with navigating their twenties. One of the case studies she talks about in her fantastic book, The Defining Decade<\/i><\/a> (we have and will be referencing it a lot here on the blog \u2013 it\u2019s really a must-read), focuses on \u201cIan,\u201d who can\u2019t decide what to do with his life. Should he pursue something in graphic design, go to law school (which would please his parents), learn Arabic and do some kind of foreign service work, or maybe postpone the decision altogether with a trip through Asia? He feels like he\u2019s drowning in a vast ocean of choices and doesn\u2019t have any idea which direction to head. Jay writes:<\/p>\n \u201cHe couldn\u2019t see land in any direction, so he didn\u2019t know which way to go. He felt overwhelmed by the prospect that he could swim anywhere or do anything. He was equally paralyzed by the fact that he didn\u2019t know which of the anythings would work out. Tired and hopeless at age twenty-five, he said he was treading water to stay alive.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As we all intrinsically know (and for reasons we\u2019ll discuss more below), nobody\u2019s future is in fact \u201climitless.\u201d But holding onto the feeling <\/i>of endless possibilities, instead of going after a few of them, is very alluring — even if doing so makes us anxious or restless<\/a>. Here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n It feels freeing.<\/b> People love having as many choices as possible (even if an overload of them can make us unhappy<\/a>). Believing that every avenue is still open to you is both comforting and liberating. We love the sense of the unknown and the intoxication of vast possibilities.<\/p>\n For this reason, we may hesitate to choose one door, as it can feel like doing so closes a bunch of other ones. Getting an MBA and going into business likely means you won\u2019t be an orthopedic surgeon; we want to hold to the belief we could do either one, yet we choose neither. As Ian put it, \u201cclaiming something felt like losing everything else.\u201d Plus, in contrast to the noncommittal task of peering in each direction from the middle of an intersection, picking a single road to start traveling down can feel boring and constraining \u2013 as well as a lot more work. Once you choose a path to take, that decision comes with necessary next steps and responsibilities. It\u2019s much easier to sit on the curb and watch the world go by than to hustle<\/a> and make something of yourself.<\/p>\n You have incredibly high expectations.<\/b> Because many in Generation Y (I\u2019m right on the tail end of it myself) were raised to feel as though we were (and are) very special, we often say we don\u2019t want to settle for an \u201cordinary\u201d life. We want our lives to be different than our parents\u2019 were in some way — to be extraordinary<\/i>. People feel very convicted about this, but if you ask them what having an extraordinary life means, they\u2019re usually not sure. They\u2019re likely to say something about not wanting a regular 9-5 office job and wanting to do something they love, but even here they\u2019re vague on what this might actually look like. They know what they don\u2019t want, but aren\u2019t sure of what they do. They figure they will simply know it when they see it, and so keep their options open in the hope that the path to an \u201cextraordinary\u201d life will somehow reveal itself.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t know how to get started.<\/b> Sometimes those who say they don\u2019t know what to do with their life in fact really do know. What they don\u2019t know is how to go after that dream, so it feels better to tell themselves, and others, that they\u2019re still trying to figure things out. As Jay puts it, not knowing what to do with your life brings great uncertainty, but \u201cthe more terrifying uncertainty is wanting something but not knowing how<\/i> to get it<\/span>.\u201d<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t start, you can\u2019t fail.<\/b> Even if you do have an idea of how to get started on building the life you want, you might be scared of trying and then failing. If you keep all your choices in the realm of mere possibilities, you don\u2019t have to risk finding out you don\u2019t have what it takes.<\/p>\n You\u2019re afraid of making the wrong choice.<\/b> This is a huge reason people hold onto the myth of a limitless future. What if you choose one of the possibilities you\u2019ve been endlessly examining and then you don\u2019t like it? What if you get stuck doing something \u201cordinary\u201d \u2013 something that doesn\u2019t fit your idea of what your life was supposed to be like or what you were really meant to do?<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy.<\/b> When Jay asks Ian how he thinks he can find his way out of this paralyzing ocean of choices, he answers: \u201cI don\u2019t know. I would say you pick a direction and start swimming. But you can\u2019t tell one way from the other, so you can\u2019t pick. You can\u2019t even tell if you\u2019re swimming toward something, so why would you use up all your energy going the wrong way?\u201d Then he adds with relief, \u201cI guess all you can do is hope someone comes along in a boat or something.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s the mindset of a lot of twentysomethings \u2013 they\u2019re waiting for their ship to come in. They want their life to be great and exciting and adventurous, but they think that it will just sort of fall into place for them somehow. Jay explains how this mindset is actually just a defense mechanism, a hedge against fear:<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a certain terror that goes along with saying \u2018My life is up to me.\u2019 It is scary to realize there\u2019s no magic, you can\u2019t just wait around for something. Not knowing what you want to do with your life\u2014or not at least having some ideas about what to do next\u2014is a defense against that terror. It is a resistance to admitting that the possibilities are not endless. It is a way of pretending that now doesn\u2019t matter. Being confused about choices is nothing more than hoping that maybe there is a way to get through life without taking charge.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Basically, what all the points above have in common is that they allow you to feel safe<\/i>. But as we\u2019ll discuss below, this feeling of safety is merely an illusion.<\/p>\n So how do you stop intentionally keeping yourself confused and let go of the myth of limitless possibilities in order to take charge of your life? The first order of business is dismantling that myth.<\/p>\n The feeling of limitless possibilities, coupled with the barrage of \u201clifestyle design\u201d rhetoric that is so popular these days, can blind you to the fact that life is still built out of the same, relatively few components that it always has been. Your future may seem vast and featureless at times, but it will be constructed \u2013 no matter how extraordinary you want it to be — with the same common \u201cparts\u201d that everyone uses.<\/p>\n Jay used the metaphor of a custom bicycle to finally get through to Ian. Ian worked at a bike shop and rode a custom model for transportation. He had put the bike together from various custom parts he had handpicked. But those parts were simply specialized versions of ones all bicycles include \u2013 frame, wheels, seat, gears, and so on.<\/p>\n Our lives are like that custom bike. We can all choose the parts that suit us best \u2013 and you may go out of your way to select unique, non-mass-produced versions — but they will come from the same main categories everyone else selects from. In building your life you basically have the following categories to work with: relationships, children, vocation, and travel\/hobbies. So we can already narrow down our \u201climitless\u201d possibilities into four divisions. How you arrange and how much you invest in each \u201cpart\u201d is up to you. You might want a tandem bike (you prize marriage), but with mountain bike tires (you want to spend a lot of time outdoors), and a baby trailer on the back (definitely want kids). Someone else might want a one-seat bike with road tires meant for speed (doesn\u2019t want to settle down) and a fixed gear (dedicated to a free, hip, artistic lifestyle). The combinations are endless, but we\u2019re all just arranging the same common parts.<\/p>\n \u201dSo everyone builds their life out of four main parts, but how do I know which kind of part to select from each category \u2013 we\u2019ve organized the choices but there are still so many!\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Let\u2019s think about this for a minute. The marriage and children question, if sticky in real life, is very straightforward \u2013 you either want to get hitched or you don\u2019t, and want to have kids or you don\u2019t. And when it comes to hobbies and what to do in our spare time, people feel pretty free in picking things up and putting them down without much pressure.<\/p>\n So when people say they don\u2019t know what to do with their life, they\u2019re really talking about one thing, even if in their cloud of uncertainty they don\u2019t realize it: they\u2019re not sure what to do for their vocation. Here the choices seem endless and the stakes terribly high. The fact that most of us still want those \u201cordinary\u201d things like marriage and kids only creates an even greater sense of pressure about choosing a really special vocation; we fear if we don\u2019t balance our traditional choices with something really unique, our lives will never rise to our vague vision of the extraordinary. We\u2019ll have the same kind of lives our parents had! It is here, we feel, that we must hold the line on diverging from the ordinary, or risk never becoming the \u201cspecial\u201d people we always felt we were.<\/p>\n Thus there\u2019s really only one category at the root of people\u2019s gnawing uncertainty about their future. And despite the pressure we may feel in choosing the \u201cright\u201d career, the possibilities are not limitless here either. Our choices are greatly narrowed by several things. First, you\u2019re not a blank slate; you\u2019ve had more than two decades of experiences that have shaped you into the man you are today. All these years have strengthened some talents and abilities<\/a> and weakened others, developed your values and beliefs, and honed some very distinct interests. Put these things together, and what you find is that as opposed to there being endless possibilities, most people are really drawn to, and have the aptitude for, no more than half a dozen vocational paths. Six is far more manageable than infinity. And of the handful of possibilities that really suit your talents, abilities, values, and interests, there\u2019s probably one that calls to you the most, that nags at you the most often \u2013 even if questions and doubts about how you\u2019re going to get there make you sometimes push it aside. This frontrunner choice, Jay suggests, may be for you what psychiatrist Christopher Bollas called the \u201cunthought known<\/b>\u201d \u2013 \u201cthose things we know about ourselves but forget somehow.\u201d You may shy away from thinking about it, and saying it out loud, but it\u2019s there nonetheless. <\/b><\/p>\nThe Alluring Myth of a Limitless Future<\/b><\/h3>\n
Everybody Starts with the Same Common Parts<\/b><\/h3>\n
Getting Down to the Brass Tacks<\/b><\/h3>\n
Listen to my podcast with author and psychologist Meg Jay:<\/em><\/h3>\n