Roaring Twenties

I recently turned 20 this year. It's a fun age, but a weird time full of juxtapositions. On one hand, I'm an adult, but I'm not grown up. Some of friends are getting married and having kids, while others are out partying every night. I'm technically independent, but I still rely on my parents for a lot of things. It's like I have one foot in the door of adulthood and one foot out. The free trial is ending, and it's time to pay to play.

If I look at my life from the perspective I had when I was 10 as a measure of success, I think I failed. Little Evie thought she would be a famous actress, after having written a best-selling young adult book series, while being in serious relationship (maybe even engaged), and living a life of lavish. She also thought she was going to college at OU hahaha.

Newsflash Little Evie: You are not doing any of those things.

But you are also not a failure.

These last two years of college have been the most amazing, accomplished years of my life. But you know what's funny? It isn't the tangible awards, verbal recognitions, or crammed resume that tell me I am not a failure. It's the fact that I don't feel like I need to do all that anymore. I don't find my worth in those things, and the desire to be the best doesn't control how I live my life.

I am an Enneagram Nine (Peacekeeper), but ask anyone what their first guess would be, and they'd say Three (Achiever). And for a little while, I thought they may be right. I was competitive, adverse to failure, hard-working, and goal driven. All typical Three characteristics. But then the burnout hit. And I was forced to take a step back and dig deeper on my desire to be the busiest and the best. That brought me to an epiphany:

It wasn't about the success.

I didn't know how to measure my own worth, so I was relying on others to tell me I was enough. I didn't crave the accomplishments, I craved the peace that came with thinking people would like me more if I accomplished more. Strangely enough, I feel like that actually had the opposite effect. Or at least, my need to share my accomplishments did.

A wise person once said, "No one needs or wants to know how busy you are."

It's a lesson I wished I learned sooner, but I am glad to have it now as I enter this new chapter in life. There's a whole new decade set before me, and I'd like to switch from calling it my "Roaring Twenties" to my "Reflective Twenties". I want this to be a season of learning. Soaking every moment in. Deepening my character, my friendships, and my faith.

Ecclesiastes 2:17 describes the work we do as meaningless, as if chasing the wind. I used to avoid this book because I didn't understand what it really meant. To me, it sounded like it was saying trying to be successful from a worldly perspective was a sin. And then I would feel convicted and guilty for wanting to succeed. Just recently, however, I heard a sermon that summed up the message in a more palatable way: "Life is not meaningless, but meaning is not found in the experiences of this life."

Our work, our goals, our dreams, they aren't inherently bad things. Being driven isn't a sin. But in the end, those things aren't the things that will matter. So, taking a page out of the book of Ecclesiastes, I'm learning to embrace life's futility in one hand, while holding out the other in search of meaning through Christ.

I want this next chapter to one for finding balance between doing things the world would see as accomplished, but not for validation from the world. My worth comes only from God. Everything else is just like icing on the cake (as long as I don't lose sight of what truly matters).

Here's to a new year, a new perspective, and new me.