Great Expections

A short reflection on twenty-three years of life.

Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash

Well… it’s the first post. Let’s see how this goes…

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Twenty-three…

It’s such an odd number. When you turn twenty-three, you move further and further away from those late teenage years when you could daydream about what you would do with the life that was given you. 

When I was in high school and even in college, I adored superhero movies. The fast-paced actions of everything kept my eyes glued to the screen, watching with anticipation to see whether the Avengers could stop Thanos in the final battle of the Infinity Saga. This adoration of superhero movies would then turn me to anime as I began watching titles like My Hero Academia and Fullmetal Alchemist. Besides thought-provoking writing and silly characters, these forms of media instilled in me an extreme desire – a desire for greatness and the ability to do something great with my life. I didn’t necessarily need to be a hero, but I wanted to make a difference, something that only I could do. 

This desire only continued to grow as I exited my high school years and entered the first year of college. I began my freshman year in 2019, where the spring semester of my first year of college remained seemingly untouched by the effects of the global shutdown caused by COVID-19. At that point, I already hadn’t been working, deciding to focus completely on my education for a few months while I worked to understand just what I was supposed to do to balance my schedule. I had recently switched my major from Graphic Design to Business Administration with a focus on Entrepreneurship with the idea that I could run some sort of business, hoping and praying that I could find just what I was supposed to do with my life. In just a few short months, though, the world had effectively shut down, and I found myself desperate for a change. Even if the stay-at-home order were lifted, I realized that my life wouldn’t change all that much. I would still be at home, searching for a fulfilling job that could pay for my ever-growing school bills as I took classes for a program that I really had no heart for.  

In a whirlwind of events, I would find myself moving to Southern California in the fall of 2020, attending classes at a small Bible college. I had been homeschooled for all of grade and high school, and with my first year of college being online, I found myself transferring to a college where I had only known a few of the staff and faculty by name when my mother had attended near the beginning of the college’s founding and told me of her personal stories. One thing they don’t warn you about when you attend smaller bible colleges like this one is the immense expectations you’ll feel placed upon you – and the expectations you unknowingly place upon yourself. 

You’ll constantly hear about the need for leaders in the ministry; you’ll see the spiritual poverty that people live in; you’ll experience first-hand the burden of wanting to make a difference. These things aren’t bad, not in the slightest. If you’re not careful, though, you’ll be like me and find that after four years of “seeking God's will” for your life, you’ll have a laundry list of accomplishments – an expectation of who you believe you’ll be by a specific time in your life. You always hear about “the return of the Lord,” and you’ll be faced with the reality that “He could come back any day now!” After all, the Lord could be returning at any time. There’s almost a desperation that you need to accomplish everything as quickly as possible. When He returns, that’s it. Game over. Do not pass go - Do not collect 200 dollars. You’re done. 

I couldn’t help but be reminded of this once more as I sat this past Sunday in my family’s kitchen, eating my breakfast. I woke up wondering about the fact that I was officially twenty-three, and the thought would follow me for the rest of the day. “Rebekah, you’re old!” my father had said the Friday prior, and all I could do was awkwardly laugh. I don’t think it would be the first thing I would say to someone when I heard they turned twenty-three, but I suppose he thought it was fitting. With each and every birthday that passes now, I always remember that young girl in high school who would write fun stories after finishing her schoolwork for the day. One particular instance stands out in my mind. I was planning a short story, thinking of my character’s age. “I’ll make her eighteen,” I said with a nod of finality. “That’s pretty old.” 

If only she knew…

There are so many things you’re never told when you become an adult. Just today, I was speaking with a coworker about this. She had a birthday a few weeks ago and was older than I was by a handful of years. “There are things that they just don’t tell you when you get to become an actual adult,” she said, and the validation I felt gave me such a sense of relief. 

You see, one of the things that people won’t tell you is that life takes time. Of course, we already know that this is the case, but do we actually realize it? I know I certainly didn’t. A part of me, deep down, mourned that Sunday about the fact that my life was nothing like I had imagined it at the age of 23. It refused to believe that I had years ahead of me, that things could change in just a matter of weeks. That it was okay for things to take years, even. 

So many times, we want things instantly. We want to have a stable job where we’re comfortable with our responsibilities now. We want to skip to graduation and bypass the exams and lectures. We want that special person to walk up to us and say, “Hey, I’m the one for you!” in a way that wouldn’t be creepy or off-putting. 

The only things in life that are instant are coffee and noodles and they’re often not our first choice. Why? Because they’re bland, flavorless, and the same as all the others. We wouldn’t prefer that for ourselves then, so why should we ask for an instant life now? 

The reason? Because we expect that of ourselves. We see others who are in similar stages of life or are near the same age as us and expect that we should be the same. It’s an expectation. And the moment we see that expectation for what it is is the moment we are presented with a choice. Do I choose to remain in my disillusioned state and even be at risk of bitterness because nothing is the way I want it to be? Or do I confront that expectation, working to understand that all of the things I want in life are possible, but it all takes time? 

You’re not alone in working to understand those great expectations. And it’s never a bad thing to expect great things from yourself. But it all requires balance. Those exciting dreams must be balanced with a dose of reality, even though it may be harsh. 

I’ve found in just a few short days of being twenty-three that the most helpful thing to ease those expectations is to surround yourself with people who will support you and encourage you as you work to move forward. And yes, you need to move forward. Don’t let the idea of an exciting future overflowing with possibilities paralyze you into inaction. 

I can already hear some of you. After all, I’ve said the same things myself: “But what if I fail? What if I try something that just really sucks? Then everyone will laugh at me, and the only thing I hear is how much of a failure I am!” First, that’s why surrounding yourself with people who support and encourage you is key. Those people won’t care about the mistakes — they’ve made plenty themselves, I can assure you. All they care about is that you’re trying. 

Second, so what if you fail? When you were learning to walk, your parents never watched you trip and fall and said, “Wow, you’re the worst at walking. You shouldn’t ever do that again!” 

No. 

They applaud you for trying. And you should too. This is your first and only run through adulthood. Just as your parents would lead and guide you when you were younger, you must do the same for yourself. 

And you’ll find yourself doing some great things that you never imagined! 

I never thought that I would want to teach. I was a socially awkward teenager and kept to myself for the majority of my life. The presence of books and video games and movies was all I believed I needed. But when I opened up myself to possibilities in jumping into career paths that were so different than what I expected, I found that I adored East Asian cultures and language, that I had a heart for education, and that I loved conveying my thoughts into written words. All of those aspects turned me to an interest in Teaching English to Speakers of Asian Languages. All of that needed time to develop. Literally twenty-three years of development. But it brought me to where I am today. In the past year, I started that Master’s program and am already halfway through it. I know that I’ll need even more years of development. After all, I don’t want an instant noodle life. 

I have no doubt that I’ll come to my twenty-fourth birthday next year and be tempted to think about all of the things that I still haven’t accomplished, to get impatient with myself that my life isn’t like everyone else around me. But in the next 365 days, I’ll be presented with brand new opportunities to accompany the regular opportunities of life, opportunities that I can share with others, but they’ll never experience them the way that I do.

So keep to those great expectations. Let them excite you for the future. But don’t forget that you’re growing and learning now. Those little events will grow and shape you into someone that you can be proud of. It may not be the person you thought you would be, but it’ll be the person you are now. 

I’ll never be a crime-fighting superhero or a crazy cool main character of a Shonen manga, but I don’t have to be. I can be the TESAL teacher who loves and supports her students, encouraging them to be themselves in a radical, exhilarating way.

And I know that I can be proud of that.

And I hope that you’ll be proud of yourself too.

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