Many questions have been bouncing around in my head these past few weeks. What do you really believe/value? Where do your beliefs and values come from? Why are these important to you? Are you who you want to be, or are you the person everyone else expects you to be? These questions have come to the surface for combination of reasons—both through SLP, personal experiences, and doing research on emerging adults and their voting behaviors.
According to Jeffrey Arnett an emerging adult is of college age, and this period of life is characterized by five main features: identity exploration, instability, being self-focused, feeling in-between, and feeling that there are many possibilities. The idea of an “emerging adult” is fairly new. A variety of social factors have contributed to this shift, but it is primarily because people are choosing to get married and have kids later in life than previous generations, as well as spending more time perusing higher education. College now becomes a time when we have less responsibilities, can be whoever we want, and can explore as many possibilities as we want.
Something I believe college students, including myself, frequently struggle with is the first feature of an emerging adult: forming their identity. Although it may seem as if most of one’s identity is already formed by the time they enter college, Arnett states that identity formation begins in adolescence but intensified in emerging adulthood. This has been challenging for me, as I am someone who finds comfort in stability and routine. I am the poster child for the Type A personality. While some people find change and conflict exciting, it makes me a little uncomfortable. Being an emerging adult is more difficult than I expected, and I sometimes wonder at what point I will feel like a “grown up”. Will it be when I start reading the paper? Buy a house? Stop occasionally eating cookies and ramen for breakfast? Even this question is difficult to answer, but for now I realize I will have to live feeling “in-between” being a kid and an adult. SLP has been a time for me to reflect on these feelings. The challenge that now comes with this newly formed sense of self is breaking others’ past perception of you so you can be true to yourself.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
Is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
~Oriah Mountain Dreamer
-Brooke
I feel that the questions you personally had in the first paragraph reflect the thoughts and questions many college students think to themselves. I like the idea of finding yourself. It somewhat goes with the idea of being alone with one other person really lets you know who you are. At college, there are so many different personality traits and beliefs, it allows you a greater opportunity to resources of your own beliefs. While talking with others about beliefs, your beliefs either become stronger or diminish. Upon knowing yourself and your beliefs you benefit in relationships and work.
I loved this first paragraph, Brooke! This reminds me a lot of the concept that we were discussing in my Social Psychology class. We were having a conversation about cognitive dissonance–how we adjust who we are to fit the scheme that we believe ourselves to be. We tailor ourselves to fit the things we say, even if we don’t inherently believe in those statements. I constantly ask myself, “Am I being true to my convictions?” If anyone has seen the play, “On Ego”, I think the question evolves into a great philosophical and neurobiological provocation of thought. This forces me to dig deep, to ask myself if my choices are/have been deeply rooted within myself all along, or if they’ve always been censored to conform to some other belief.
Thanks Coby! If you’re interested in this topic, here’s where most of my info came from: http://www.jeffreyarnett.com/EmerAdul_Chap1.pdf. Jeffrey Arnett has researched and written extensively on the topic of emerging adulthood. The link is for the first chapter of his book. He goes into a lot more depth about the five features.
I have grown up to be that person who finds “change and conflict exciting,” as you said and I have found this piece very intriguing. This is because I still feel, just like yourself, as though I have not completely emerged as an adult even though I enjoy a changing lifestyle. I still feel as though I am just a kid at times and that I am “in between” and this goes to show that it is a very difficult and confusing transformation for all personality types to become an adult. I think for me this transformation is most difficult, because as a growing child, student, and person you go through the most change. After college, I will more than likely get a job, get married, have kids, and my life will not go through much change thereafter. This is mind blowing to me, but also something that I am excited about. I am excited to have a more constant and stable lifestyle later on in life, because in essence, this change to a more stable lifestyle is a change in itself.