New Milestones

Traditionally (Re: prior to the Great Recession) the milestones for life after high school were:

- Attend and graduate from College or - Get a job

- Land a great job, or one starter job before landing a great lifelong career

- Get Married

- Buy a Home

- Have a kid

- Have some more

We all know by now that these traditional milestones have been largely made intangible by the economic downturn. Still, outside of our peer-group, these milestones are still held in the collective conscious as signs for being a successful adult.  Redefining “the Good Life” is a huge part of redefining what it means to be single in this grave new world. It’s time to choose new milestones for ourselves, to declare them, map out the path and achieve them.

It’s not good for our brains or our spirits to hold fast to these old milestones. If we keep them old paradigm we will be left feeling as though we have stalled out. Instead of feeling as though we occupy the space between graduation and success, let’s consider ourselves already on the path of living a full and intentful.

This time before we are bound by mortgages, marriages, children and tenure can serve as an opportunity to craft a life-view and begin living it out. Our free time allows the space needed to convert this life-view into daily habit before we are bogged down by life event clutter and clamour. Once a positive life-view is out habitual go-to philosophy, we can think on our feet, jump to the right and honest conclusions and bring more positivity to the table as we set new places for partner (or not) and kids (or not).

Individuality is the cornerstone of our generation’s zeitgeist and so the milestones we set for ourselves are unique to us. Lucky is the generation that follows us because they are less likely to feel the weight of the world on their shoulders by not picking the usual path because either they a) don’t want it or b) can’t have it.

I would love to hear from each of you on the milestones you for yourself and choose freely. As for me, I will celebrate the following crowning achievements and consider myself a grand success as I continue to tick off the boxes:

• Traveling to India, Ireland, England, Colombia, Peru, Guatemala, Morocco, Scotland, Turkey, Greece, Italy
• Making and maintaining good quality people in my life for over ten years
• Find a way to give back to others through exercising my own talents
• Get into Nursing School (CHECK)
• Become a Nurse Practitioner
• Paying down my student loan debt monthly
• Adding to my savings account monthly
• Sharing my life with a quality mate
• Working to keep a romantic relationship healthy and/or knowing when it’s not and letting it go
• Deciding now what would Katie do when faced with big life decisions: marriage, marital conflict, pregnancy, birth of a son (circumcision), parenting, the chance to go back to school, moving out of state or country.

So those are what I have declared my milestones thus far. Some I’ve already been able to check off, Yay me! Others are still to be achieved, but having them written down allows me to be conscientious in my choices and actions so that I know I am on the path towards achieving them. There are more victories we can celebrate as single, non-landowning young ones. What’s on your list?