Lifestyle

Why You Can't (And Shouldn't) Try To Escape From Your 20-Something Life

by Kayla Cruz

Be honest… are your bags packed yet? Are you just about ready to run away to God-knows-where just to escape the life that you’re living?

Ready to quit your job, break up with your boyfriend and backpack through Europe in search of something -- even though you don’t even know what that something is?

If your answer is "yes," welcome to your twenties. Because, yes, that’s exactly how we all feel at one point or another.

It seems that most of us reach a moment during this super-weird time in our lives when we’re just so overwhelmed by the newness of adulthood that we don’t know how to deal with anything.

So, naturally, when we get to this point, we feel this inexplicable urge to run away. To run away somewhere very far and different.

Some people actually run away, quitting their jobs to "find themselves.”

Some people drop out of school, having convinced themselves that it's not what they want anymore.

Others end relationships at the very moment when they become just a little too real and commitment-y.

We just quit. We quit and run away because life is hard.

And I’m not going to lie to you, adult life IS hard. It's definitely not always a blast.

But in my experience, I’ve learned that the hard stuff is the best stuff, but instead of running away from it, we should be running towards it.

1. You have to face the tough stuff to grow

Sure, I’ve had some really sh*tty experiences. I’ve done things I’m not proud of, and I’ve had people do things to me that I really wish I could just forget sometimes. But through all of it, I’ve grown tremendously as a person.

I’m definitely not the same person I was five years ago, and each and every one of those tough times has contributed to that. I’ve fallen flat on my face and I’ve gotten up a fighter. But you can’t call yourself a fighter if you just run away. You can’t grow without a little resistance.

2. You have to face the tough stuff in order to appreciate when things are awesome

As bad as things have been in the past, I’m really grateful for all the moments I used to spend lying in my room, crying my eyes out. It’s because I’ve experienced times like that that I can really appreciate how awesome my life is right now.

When you’ve experienced the worst of the worst and lived through it, you learn to recognize the good in your life instantly. You recognize it, you savor it, and you learn not to take the good times for granted.

3. When you run away, you waste a lot of time -- and time is super expensive

I’m not a fan of wasting time, and I’m certainly not a fan of wasting money. Unfortunately, when you run away from your 20-something life, you end up doing both. If you think that the only way to find yourself is to quit your job and travel the world, you’re totally wrong.

So before you just give up and end your relationship or your job on a whim, you really owe it to yourself to put a little more thought into it. Instead of focusing on the running away part, ask yourself why you feel like giving up.

What’s causing you to feel like that? And when you answer that question, you can then work on coming up with solutions that are a little less expensive.

4. Even though things are kind of chaotic, think of all the stories you'll have to tell

When I have brunch with my girlfriends, the awesome stories aren’t the ones about me on my couch, sipping wine, loving my job, while everything else in my life is going amazing.

I mean, yeah, those things are nice, but they don’t make for such great stories.

The good ones are always the ones about my failures and how I made a mess of things. So yes, right now your life is crazy. Your life is a big, fat mess and everything’s chaotic. But think of the stories you'll have to tell.

Photo Courtesy: We Heart It