Finding Community in Our Twenties
san francisco
When I graduated in June 2022, the question I had avoided throughout my college years finally caught up to me, forcing me to face the truth: what now?
For me, the answer was a full-time job, which I was taught to mean the epitome of stability. And for a while, I was satisfied with the answer… until I realized I did not enjoy what I was doing.
“For so long, I was mostly around my peers 80% of the time. Now, I’m surrounded by a much broader range of people—those with families, those fully focused on their careers, those who live for the weekend,” said Thrisha Veda, Club Rambutan’s Phoenix-based Web Designer. “It can be disorienting, especially when I go back to seeing friends my age, but it’s helping me solidify my values and get a clearer sense of the future I’m working towards.”
The reality is that many people are at completely different stages of their lives in their twenties. It’s our first step into the real world, and yet society pushes many ideas onto us at this stage in our lives.
Our twenties are supposed to be the best time of our lives.
Everything should be figured out.
This is the time to enjoy our youth.
Felix Dong right after graduating in 2022
It can be stressful and overwhelming to have this pressure on us. I realized when talking to my peers, there’s a sense of helplessness, confusion, and soul searching. In a sad but comforting way, none of us know what we’re doing.
“A lot of the uncertainty falls on my career path and the confidence in the art I’ve been making over the years,” said Sam Winans, Club Rambutan’s Phoenix-based Event Coordinator. “Ever since I completed my degrees at Arizona State University, I felt like I was thrown into a pit of pressure of needing to enter my field of study immediately. I’ve had a lot of difficulty finding jobs with degrees that’s made me want to give up on my career.”
Sam Winans shot the magazine cover photo for Club Rambutan Issue 2
Given the COVID-19 pandemic, many people had to adjust to changes in how they interact with one another and are still recovering from social anxiety. In addition, the competitive job market and mass layoffs only compound a sense of helplessness in our generation.
The differences in society’s expectations and reality can be stark in contrast. We are expected to have everything clear-cut and defined, but in reality, there is a lot of uncertainty during this time in our lives.
Dr. Meg Jay wrote a popular book, The Defining Decade, which explores the importance of our twenties, stating “Sure, the 20s are for experimenting,” she says in an interview with Big Think, “but not just with philosophies and vacations and substances. The 20s are your best chance to experiment with jobs and relationships. Then each move can be more intentional and more informed than the last.”
After getting laid off from my full-time job, I felt isolated and lacked direction in where I wanted to go. It was time to try new things, seeing what would stick and what wouldn’t. It was a critical point for me to explore the arts and chase the passion projects that kept tapping on my shoulders but that I had failed to pay attention to in the past.
This is when I realized that finding community was vital. Many of us in our twenties are at different stages in our lives but being able to come together and connect about our experiences can make the journey a little less lonely.
Sam echoes this sentiment, “The steps I took to find my community was simply hearing out others' frustrations. I believe finding common ground with others, [such as] shared frustrations and experiences, can spark an assembly of a community on its own.”
