The Pressure to Have It All Figured Out
Who decided we were supposed to have our lives together by a certain age?
Toss & Talk | Features & Reflections
In 2021, I began my freshman year at East Tennessee State University, majoring in Business Management.
Coming from a family of educators, education was never really a question growing up. It was something I understood to be important. Something that could open doors, create opportunities, and help me build a successful future.
Now, that's not to say you can't be successful without a college education. I absolutely believe you can. But for me, college was part of the plan.
And I had a plan.
At least, I thought I did.
I was leaving Memphis, stepping into adulthood, and beginning a new chapter of my life in Johnson City, Tennessee. For the first time, I was away from my mother, cousins, and grandparents. I was learning how to live independently, make decisions for myself, and navigate a world much bigger than the one I had grown up in.
And somewhere in the middle of all that freedom, I got distracted.
I started partying more than I should have. I lost focus. I wasn't giving my education the attention it deserved, and eventually, my grades began reflecting that.
I started failing classes.
After nearly two years of college, I was approaching academic probation. On top of that, I owed the university money.
I felt overwhelmed.
Not just by my academic struggles or financial obligations, but by the feeling that I was failing at something I had always believed I was supposed to accomplish.
So I made the decision to step away.
I wasn't academically dismissed. I chose to leave because I needed time to figure out my finances, my priorities, and honestly, my life.
But even though it was my decision, it still felt like failure.
I felt like I had disappointed my family.
I felt like I had disappointed myself.
And for somebody who had always been determined to become someone and do something meaningful, that feeling was difficult to carry.
What I didn't realize then was that I was experiencing something many young adults face: the pressure to have life figured out before we've even had the opportunity to fully understand ourselves.
Growing up before adulthood
When I reflect on my college experience, I also think about the life I had before college.
Because sometimes we talk about young adults needing to grow up without acknowledging that some of us were required to take on responsibilities long before we turned 18.
I appreciate my upbringing. I appreciate the sacrifices my family made, and I especially appreciate my mother.
Growing up, my mother worked two jobs to provide for our family. Even when life wasn't easy, she made sure we had what we needed.
And because she was working so much, I learned how to take care of certain things at a young age.
I learned how to cook, clean, and handle household responsibilities. I learned how to do things for myself, not simply because I wanted independence, but because I understood my mother was doing everything she could to provide for us.
When my parents separated for good in 2018, we were living at my grandmother's house. Through those changes, my mother continued working hard and showing up for our family.
Looking back, I recognize that those experiences taught me responsibility.
But they also taught me something else.
Knowing how to survive isn't always the same as knowing how to build the life you want.
You can know how to cook, clean, work, and manage responsibilities and still enter adulthood unsure of how to navigate financial pressure, educational setbacks, relationships, and decisions that could affect your future.
And I think that's something we don't discuss enough.
Some young adults are learning independence for the first time when they leave home. Others have been carrying significant responsibilities since childhood.
Our experiences may be different, but neither guarantees that we'll have everything figured out.
Sometimes life forces us to grow up quickly.
But growing up quickly doesn't mean we stop needing guidance, support, or opportunities to learn.
When one semester becomes two years
When I stepped away from ETSU, the plan was simple.
Take one semester off.
Get my finances together.
Refocus.
Return to school.
One semester.
That's what I kept telling myself.
But that semester eventually became more than two years away from college.
And during that time, I remained in Johnson City.
Altogether, I spent approximately four years there, including nearly two years attending ETSU.
I could have returned home to Memphis. My family would have welcomed me, and looking back, I recognize what a blessing that was.
But my pride played a role in my decision to stay.
I wanted to prove that I could figure things out for myself.
After watching my mother work multiple jobs and make sacrifices for our family, I felt like I needed to learn how to stand on my own without constantly depending on her.
So I stayed.
I worked. I got an apartment. I continued trying to figure out what I wanted my life to look like.
And I kept saying I was going to get back into school.
I was going to make a plan.
I was going to do this.
I was going to do that.
But eventually, I had to confront something uncomfortable.
I was spending more time talking about the changes I wanted to make than consistently taking the steps necessary to make them happen.
And that was a lesson I needed to learn.
Because recognizing your mistakes is important, but recognizing your mistakes and actually growing from them are two different things.
Growth requires movement.
It requires changing habits, making decisions, and sometimes admitting that the way you've been approaching life simply isn't working.
I couldn't change what happened during my first years of college.
But I could change what happened next.
The pressure starts earlier than we think
My experience isn't unique in one important way: young people often face expectations about achievement long before they become adults.
According to a March 2025 Pew Research Center study, 68% of surveyed U.S. teenagers ages 13–17 said they felt a great deal or a fair amount of pressure to get good grades. Another 47% reported pressure to look good, while 41% felt pressure to fit in socially.
These findings concern teenagers rather than all Gen Z adults, but they illustrate how early expectations about performance and acceptance can begin.
And I wonder how many of us carry those pressures into adulthood.
In high school, we're expected to make good grades, participate in activities, and prepare for college or a career.
Then we graduate, and the expectations change.
At 18, we're supposed to know what we want to study.
At 22, we're supposed to graduate.
By our mid-twenties, we're expected to be established, financially stable, and moving toward the next milestone.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, we're also supposed to know what we want from relationships, whether we want marriage or children, and what kind of future we're building.
But who decided everybody was supposed to follow the same timeline?
And what happens when life doesn't go according to that plan?
I think those questions matter because pressure doesn't disappear simply because we become adults.
Sometimes it becomes heavier.
We're no longer just worried about meeting expectations.
We're worried about what happens when we don't.
Watching everybody else move forward
One of the hardest parts of remaining in Johnson City was watching people around me reach milestones I had once expected to reach alongside them.
Friends were graduating.
People were beginning careers.
Others were moving into new chapters of their lives.
And I was still trying to figure out what came next for me.
I remember wondering:
What am I going to do with my life?
It wasn't that I didn't want those people to succeed.
I was proud of them.
But their accomplishments sometimes reminded me of the things I hadn't accomplished.
And that's where comparison began affecting how I saw myself.
I started feeling like I needed to be what I saw around me.
Successful like the people in my family.
Established like some of my friends.
Accomplished like the people I followed on social media.
And somewhere along the way, I started measuring my life against everybody else's progress.
But what I was forgetting was that everybody's circumstances are different.
Some people have financial support.
Some are working while attending school.
Some are supporting relatives.
Some are navigating personal challenges that nobody else knows about.
And some are simply trying to figure out what they want from life.
We don't all begin with the same resources, opportunities, or responsibilities.
So why do we keep expecting everybody to arrive at the same destination at the same time?
Social media and the illusion of success
I think social media can be a wonderful thing.
It allows us to connect, create, build businesses, share accomplishments, and learn from people we might never meet otherwise.
But I also think we have to acknowledge how it can affect the way we measure our own lives.
You open Instagram, and somebody your age has purchased a house.
You scroll through TikTok, and somebody is explaining how they became financially successful at 23.
Somebody else is getting married.
Another person is celebrating a promotion.
And before you know it, you're wondering what you've been doing with your life.
It's not necessarily jealousy.
Sometimes you're genuinely happy for those people.
But there's still that quiet question:
Why am I not there yet?
A 2025 Pew Research Center report found that 48% of U.S. teenagers surveyed believed social media had a mostly negative effect on people their age. At the same time, the report also found that teens recognized positive aspects of social media, including connection and creativity.
That distinction matters.
Social media isn't automatically harmful, and its effects aren't the same for everyone.
But I think the constant exposure to other people's accomplishments can create unrealistic expectations about what success is supposed to look like.
We see the graduation picture, but not necessarily the financial struggles.
We see the new house, but not always the years of saving, sacrifices, or assistance that made it possible.
We see the successful business, but rarely every failed idea that came before it.
And sometimes we forget that what people share publicly isn't a complete picture of their lives.
We're comparing the parts of our lives we're still trying to figure out with the parts of somebody else's life they've chosen to celebrate.
And that's not always a fair comparison.
When college doesn't go according to plan
One thing I want to be clear about is that my college experience wasn't simply the result of circumstances outside my control.
I made decisions that contributed to my academic struggles.
I lost focus.
I didn't manage my priorities the way I should have.
And those choices had consequences.
I believe accountability is important.
But I also believe there's a difference between taking responsibility for a mistake and allowing that mistake to become your identity.
For a long time, I struggled with that distinction.
I knew I had made mistakes.
But somewhere along the way, I started believing those mistakes meant I was a failure.
And there's a difference.
My story is also part of a much larger conversation about interrupted college education.
In its 2025 Some College, No Credential report, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center estimated that 43.1 million people in the United States had attended college but were no longer enrolled and had not earned a credential as of the beginning of the 2023–24 academic year. Of those, approximately 37.6 million were under age 65.
Those numbers don't tell us that everyone left college for the same reason.
They don't explain every individual's financial circumstances, academic performance, or personal challenges.
But they demonstrate that interrupted educational journeys are far from uncommon.
And importantly, the report also documented increases in students returning to postsecondary education.
That matters to me.
Because I think we spend so much time celebrating people who complete college on a traditional timeline that we sometimes overlook the people trying to find their way back.
The student who struggled academically.
The student who couldn't afford to continue.
The student who needed to work.
The student who lost direction.
Or the student who stepped away believing it would only be temporary.
Those stories deserve to be part of our conversations about education, too.
And we should recognize that personal responsibility and systemic challenges can exist at the same time.
A student can make mistakes while also facing genuine financial barriers.
A person can need better discipline while also needing institutional support.
It's not always one or the other.
Success doesn't have one timeline
Something I've been learning is that we have to stop treating life as though everybody is supposed to follow the exact same schedule.
Not everybody graduates at 22.
Not everybody finds their career at 25.
Not everybody gets married by 30.
And not everybody even wants those same things.
But I also want to be careful here.
I'm not saying we should spend 10 or 15 years repeating the same patterns without making an effort to grow.
I'm not saying we should ignore our responsibilities or become comfortable with avoiding difficult decisions.
I believe we should challenge ourselves.
I believe we should have goals.
I believe we should pursue education, develop skills, and work toward building meaningful lives.
But I also believe there's a difference between being intentional about your future and being ashamed of your present.
You can recognize that you need to make changes without believing your life is a failure.
You can be dissatisfied with where you are without dismissing everything you've learned.
And you can be ambitious without expecting yourself to accomplish everything immediately.
Sometimes progress looks like graduating.
Sometimes it looks like returning to school after years away.
Sometimes it looks like paying off a financial obligation, learning a new skill, changing careers, or finally developing the discipline you needed years ago.
Those accomplishments might not all receive the same attention on social media.
But that doesn't make them any less meaningful.
Faith, failure, and beginning again
As a person of faith, I also think about how easily we can confuse our plans with God's plans.
We create timelines.
We decide when certain things should happen.
And when life doesn't unfold according to those expectations, we sometimes begin questioning whether we've somehow missed our purpose.
Proverbs 16:9 reminds us that people make plans, but the Lord establishes their steps.
I don't interpret that scripture as permission to avoid responsibility or simply wait for life to happen.
I believe faith and action belong together.
We still have decisions to make.
We still have work to do.
And sometimes we have consequences to address.
But I also believe that our mistakes don't have to be the final word over our futures.
For me, that means learning how to acknowledge where I went wrong without remaining trapped in the shame of it.
It means recognizing that I can still pursue an education, build a career, develop my creative interests, and work toward the future I've imagined.
Maybe the journey looks different now.
Maybe it's taking longer.
But different doesn't necessarily mean defeated.
I'm still figuring it out, too
I think one of the most important things I can say in this article is that I don't have everything figured out.
I'm still learning.
I'm still growing.
I'm still making decisions about my education, my career, my creative work, and the kind of future I want to build.
And sometimes I still feel that pressure.
The pressure to be further along.
The pressure to accomplish more.
The pressure to look around and wonder whether I'm doing enough.
But I'm learning not to allow those feelings to become the only way I measure my life.
Because I don't want to spend my twenties so worried about where I should be that I fail to appreciate where I actually am.
And I don't want one difficult chapter from my college experience to define everything that comes after it.
I think about the young man I was in 2021.
I was excited, ambitious, inexperienced, and still learning who I was.
I made mistakes.
Some of those mistakes cost me opportunities and time.
And there are things I would absolutely do differently if I could go back.
But I also recognize that those experiences forced me to confront important questions about myself.
What do I actually want?
What habits do I need to change?
Am I making decisions because they're meaningful to me, or because I feel pressured to meet somebody else's expectations?
And most importantly, am I taking action toward the future I say I want?
Because I've learned that growth isn't simply recognizing what needs to change.
Growth is doing something about it.
I may not be where I thought I would be when I was 18, but that doesn't mean I've stopped becoming the person I want to be.
This is only the beginning
If there's one thing I hope somebody takes away from this article, it's that your life doesn't have to follow somebody else's timeline to be meaningful.
Maybe you're 23 and still deciding what career you want.
Maybe you're 27 and thinking about returning to school.
Maybe you're 30 and starting over.
Maybe you're watching your friends reach milestones while you're still trying to find your footing.
That doesn't automatically mean you've failed.
But I also want to encourage you not to become so comfortable with the idea of having time that you stop taking action.
Make the plan.
Be honest about what needs to change.
Ask for help when you need it.
Take responsibility for the decisions you've made.
And start working toward the life you want to build.
Even if that means starting again.
Even if it means taking a different route.
Even if it means admitting that the original plan didn't work.
I started college in 2021 believing I had a clear picture of what my future would look like.
Five years later, that picture has changed.
And while there are things I wish I had done differently, I'm beginning to understand that success isn't simply about how quickly you reach a destination.
It's also about who you become along the way.
And here's something I keep coming back to:
If everybody had everything figured out, what would be the purpose of the journey?
Life is a process of learning, growing, making decisions, facing challenges, and discovering things about ourselves that we didn't know before.
So maybe the question we should stop asking young adults is, "Why don't you have everything figured out yet?"
And maybe we should start asking:
What are you learning about yourself?
What kind of life are you trying to build?
And what can you do today to move closer to it?
Because you don't have to have everything figured out to begin building something meaningful.
Your setbacks are part of your story. They don't have to become the ending.
And for me?
This is only the beginning.
Let's keep the conversation going
Have you ever felt behind because your life wasn't following the timeline you expected?
Have social media, family expectations, or watching your friends reach milestones ever made you question your own progress?
And if you could speak to your 18-year-old self today, what would you tell them about success, failure, and finding your way?
I'd love for us to keep having these conversations.
Real Life. Real Faith. Real Conversations.
Toss & Talk | Features & Reflections
Sources and further reading
Pew Research Center — March 13, 2025
The Gender Gap in Teen Experiences, section “Pressures teens are facing.” National survey of U.S. teenagers ages 13–17, conducted September–October 2024.
Pew Research Center — April 22, 2025
Teens, Social Media and Mental Health. National survey examining teenagers' and parents' perceptions of social media, mental health, and online experiences.
National Student Clearinghouse Research Center — June 2025
Some College, No Credential: A 2025 Snapshot for the Nation and the States. Includes national estimates and trends in re-enrollment.
Scripture reference: Proverbs 16:9.
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