Who Are You?

Some time ago I was working through some young adult curriculum. It claimed that there are 3 big questions facing young adults in America today and proposed to help young adults work through them. The three questions are:

• Where will I work?
• Where will I live?
• Whom will I marry?

At first glance, these questions struck me as surprises, because I had honestly never thought of them before. Of course they had occurred to me, but they had never really been so consuming that they paralyzed me. The closest would be when I graduated early from UT with no job or plan. I applied to a number of jobs, but never really got too concerned. The other two questions have rarely bothered me at all.

As I thought more deeply about them, I realized that the reason that these questions surprised me is that they are not the real questions - they are only surface level. The second question is largely determined by the other two, and thus the question of living situations should be tossed out. The other two are deceivers.

The question of where to work and the question of whom to marry are both largely undiscernable and uncontrollable. You can't really know where to work until you receive that phone call saying that you are hired, and you can't really know the identity of your God-ordained spouse until one of you is on one knee and the other is saying yes. Moreover, the control that you think you have in the situations is deceptive. Where to work is largely determined by other people (namely, the employers), decisions that you have made in the past, and your choices of personal identity. You can only really make broad category choices. Whom to marry is largely determined of course by the person you are trying to date, and is also highly dependent on your other choices, including life direction and identity.

One thing is common between both - your career and your spouse are both significantly affected by personal choices regarding your identity. Therefore, I propose that there is really only one question facing young adults in America today:

• Who will you be?

The scope of this composition is not on how to establish your identity or go about that process....I would try to write it if I knew what it was. However, I do know that you cannot determine who you will be without knowing precisely who you are. Therefore, the real point of this article is to say that self-awareness is near the center of establishing your life as a young adult.