Paige Mason
Paper 1 First Draft
Imagine having just graduated, you’ve thrown your cap in the air screaming a shouting with joy. What next? Do you go get that job you’ve been working your tail off for the last four, five, six years? Or, do you take that vacation you’ve been waiting oh so long for. As Phycology Professor Jeffery Jensen Arnett states emerging adulthood is “identity exploration, instability, self-focus, feeling in-between.” This self-discovery time period could potentially become a life stage. While recognizing emerging adulthood as a life phase will allow people to pursue their passions and make a happier society it comes at great cost. With people using this time to explore their career, passions, it could create a happier society, but is it worth all of those costs to have that happiness?
By establishing Arnett’s ideas of Emerging adulthood as a life phase this gives the individual a lot of opportunities to explore the world. Instead of going right into the work force after graduating emerging adulthood is giving you the chance to go the Europe, Africa, across the United States etc. Traveling is beneficial for lots of reasons: It’s an opportunity to see the world, it’s a chance to self-discover, and lastly, it’s a chance to escape reality a little and enjoy time away from home. In “Adults, we need to have the talk” by Thomas King, he talks about how people are sitting in a meeting and say, “Why am I here, I can’t see the value in this?”
(King, 2) Stepping back for a little is important and necessary because understanding the value of what you are doing is important when finding the right job. Sometimes people aren’t sure why they went through the years of education yet. They can’t see the full payoff of what they just did.
Passion: a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept. In life you should enjoy what you do, you should have passion for what you do otherwise why do it? By officially merging emerging adulthood into one of the life stages is gives the individual the opportunity to find that passion. Perhaps it will end of being something completely different than expect. Passions are important to have. It is part of who you are. If you don’t get ask that at a younger age your life could be drastically different, in terms of what the individual does with their life. King makes a point in saying that he had wanted his parents to ask him “what I’m passionate about, what I desire, what kind of society I want to live in and how I could create a legacy to help make that place a reality.” (King, 5) King believes that it’s young children’s passions are what drives the world forward. If emerging adults do not know what their passions are how can they be beneficial to society?
Society as a whole does benefit from this. This makes society as a whole happier. When people have jobs, they are passionate about they enjoy going to work more. If people see someone happy and doing what they love that will inspire others to go to the same. If people are discouraging and miserable at work that effects the whole energy in the work place. This will hopefully also lead to more respect and dedication to the job.
Though emerging adulthood can benefit American society there are also cons to it. The hard thing with acknowledge this transition as a life phase would send American plummeting down into a darkness. By giving individuals this time to figure themselves out could be nothing other than wasteful. Some people are more apt to waste time then to use it to benefit from it. Individuals would take this time for granted. If adults are moving back in with their parents that can lead to permanent dents in their finances. By moving back in with the parents also makes them in a sense in charge of you again. It’s basically going backwards instead of forwards in life which could lead to permanent changes. When an individual gets comfortable in a situation it is very hard to get out and change it. To sum up why allowing emerging adulthood to become actual life phase is a terrible idea it all comes down to LAZINESS. We naturally are a lazy society so now giving individuals the chance to explore life’s options is going drastically negatively impact everyone’s motivation to return to pursing their degree they got in the first place.
Not only does this decision impact individuals but society as well. If individuals become lazy then with a quick snap of the fingers society will also become lazy. Motivation is not the only factor that is impacted. It would affect social security. If an individual is not working they are not accumulating earned dollars that the government will pay them when they retire. So the more time taken for self-exploration it can be looked at as less money for when you retire. Health insurance also is impacted, if you stay at home after college then parents parents would be paying for health insurance for you until you are 26. Even worse if you are 26 and older and not working you have to figure out a way to pay for health insurance and without a steady income that will be a hard time.
For me I’m torn in a way with how I feel. The more I think about it the more I get confused with how I feel. I know this is strange to say but I think the characteristics of emerging adulthood, what you get out of should be given to adults that deserve it. I know that’s not how it works, but that how I feel. I don’t think as a society that it should become a life phases because then you have those more susceptible to laziness.
