I’m in my twenties. I’m at that point in life when I’m meant to be an adult, but I feel like a kid. I have a full-time job, live in the middle of Manchester, pay my taxes, blog about politics and do all my own washing – but I have no idea what I’m doing. Honestly, I feel like I missed the adulting class at school or something, everyone around me seems like they know exactly what they’re doing. I’ve got friends my age who are getting engaged, married or having families. Friends who have already got their dream job, are travelling the world, studying to become doctors or engineers, or just living the carefree life. Everybody seems to know what their place is in the world and I’m just trying my best at winging it.
So what is my place in the world? Who am I? And what am I meant to be doing?
Sometimes I wish there was a quiz I could take on Buzzfeed that would tell me what I’m supposed to be doing right now. Should I go to uni? Should I settle down? Should I move to Australia? These and more are all questions I ask myself regularly, changing my mind on the answer far too often. When I was religious, I was constantly searching for my ‘calling’. Constantly wondering what ‘God’s plan’ was for my life. Now I’ve left religion behind that question of ‘calling’ is one of the only things left. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m on this planet for a reason, and that I have a purpose for being here and can never fully decide what that is.
I’ve changed a lot of traits over the years. I picked things up from my parents and wider family. They brought me up and played a major part in forming me from the day I was born until I started secondary school. In school, I was bullied a lot but was able to find real friends in the music department. Here I started playing the drums and found a passion for making music. Growing up in two very different churches gave me a strong Christian faith which I was very vocal about through most of my time at college. Then, after college, I was part of a large evangelical church where I made friends in the production team, the staff team and in small groups – all who shaped me and were with me as I started blogging and nearly became a priest. I’ve got podcasters I listened to that helped me as I questioned and struggled with my faith falling apart, and friends from a festival that helped me to realise that the chaos is beautiful and everything is meaningless.
The people and circumstances around me have made me who I am. Some of this was healthy, but some of it wasn’t. There’s been plenty of times when I’ve done something I didn’t want to because I’ve thought it’s what I’m meant to be doing ‘at my age’. Whether it’s going to a party, dressing or talking a certain way, getting off my face and not remembering the night before, or watching Game Of Thrones. All this to try and fit in with the people around me because I feel like my friends want me to be something I’m not, or if I want to be successful, I’ve got to change who I am.
But I can’t change who I am. The older I get, the more I realise that the only thing I can ever truly be is myself. I might look around and see people being ‘successful’ or who look like they’re having a great time. But, that doesn’t mean I have to be like them to feel like them. In fact, most of the time they probably feel exactly the same as me.
We all have a choice in life, between trying to be somebody or something we’re not and being ourselves. Measuring yourself against what other people are doing or achieving only ever ends in disappointment. You can never be anybody other than the person you are right now, so you have a choice to either go against yourself or go with yourself.
I’m choosing to go with myself. I want to live my life doing the things that I enjoy, following the causes I am passionate about, and being the person I am. I don’t know where I’ll end up, but I know that if I follow the life, do the things that excite me, then I’ll be living a life worth living.
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