No Matter What Happens, Do Not Become a Teacher: For Young Folks (and you) Figuring Life Out
“I have dreams. Why is 25 so unnecessarily hard?”
This is the question Yari asked a few days ago, followed by the kind sigh that could put out forest fires. Or at least marshmallows big enough for s’mores lit on fire. Yari’s one of those genius kids Langston Hughes wrote about, suggesting it’s probably best they’re killed because this world isn’t made for them. She’s also a 25-year-old who’s wrestling with the kind of pressure that feels impossible at that age. She talked and I listened and before she spiraled too far out, I told her about another mentee from years ago, who at 25 was on the brink of collapse under the weight of societal and familial expectations — expectations so uncalled for they felt almost as cruel as putting a window in a prison cell. Or not putting a window in a prison cell. It was me sharing hope. And of course, the conversation turned inward, as it often does, and I remembered me at 25. Not that I was only 165 pounds and not that I really had a thing for American Eagle boot cut jeans, but that younger version of me who was clutching at straws, reaching for what I call “flotation device jobs” to escape the overwhelming sense of drowning — those safe, uninspired roles we cling to not because they excite us or because we wanted them since we were still thinking on out own, but because they promise stability when the chaos feels too much to bear and the accounts are too low to press “Balance Inquiry” at the ATM. I was almost a teacher, almost a flight attendant, almost a stock trader, almost a human resources specialist.
Almost.
It’s a heavy word, isn’t it? Almost as heavy as that suitcase you pack to carry into a life you don’t want. At 25, “almost” feels like a specter hovering over every choice. The baby you almost had, the career you almost pursued, the city you almost moved to, the person you almost loved. It’s a word that speaks to decisions made out of fear or necessity, to futures that could have been but weren’t. At 25, I almost walked into a life I would undoubtedly have regretted. And for what? To satisfy the expectations of people who weren’t living my life? To ease the discomfort of a culture that demands certainty and stability at an age when uncertainty and exploration should rule the day?
At a recent reunion, a friend asked me if I remembered telling her, “No matter what happens, do not become a teacher.” I absolutely remembered. And let me be clear: that’s not a jab at teachers. I loved nearly all of mine and believe they are some of the most important people in the world. But it is a jab at the notion of becoming a teacher — or anything else — because you may see it as the straightest line forward. Because it’s a kayak when you’re floundering, rather than the ship you truly want to build. My friend went on to tell me that in the seven years since, there were three distinct moments when she almost became a teacher. Each time, she remembered my words and turned down the interviews, rejecting the safety net in favor of her dreams. Today, she’s a television producer.
But why is it like this? Why is 25 such a minefield? Why does it feel like the walls are closing in, as if you must make definitive choices that will dictate the rest of your life?
It’s because 25 sits at the crossroads of so many conflicting pressures. You’re old enough to have accumulated some life experience, to feel just how gritty and oily and sticky life is as it moves through your fingers and drips onto your new shoes. But you’re still young enough to dream big, to imagine that the life you want is within reach if you can muster up the audacity to reach for it. Society, however, doesn’t much care for this in-between space. It wants you settled. Because that’s what society chose. It wants a neat story to tell about you: “They’re doing this,” “They’ve achieved that,” “They’re on their way to so and so.” Anything less feels like failure, I’ve heard.
And then there’s your mama and daddy and your sister and her lover and your brother and your bald-headed granny. For so many, 25 is the age when parents and grandparents and older siblings who were recently awarded with an ice cream party by their boss for their decades of service to the company start to voice their concerns more urgently. They want you to be safe, to be stable, to have a plan because that’s what they may be pretending works for them. Their love, though often genuine, can manifest as pressure to conform — to make choices that align with their vision of success rather than your own. It’s maddening and it’s heartbreaking and it’s a battle that so many of us lose. I lost a friend to it when he decided his parents were right and being an accountant and being a husband in a lust-less marriage was better than being happy. I shared my thoughts and that was the last time we spoke as friends.
Teachers, flight attendants, human resource specialists, and accountants.
25-year-old me teetered on the edge of decisions that leave 42-year-old me wondering what life is like in the universes that unfolded with each different course of action. I must have interviewed for 12 teaching jobs. Continental Airlines had me meet with the big boss after taking our interviewee group from 30 to 2. They sent me home when I told them being a Flight Attendant was not in my five-year plan. HR roles felt like the adult thing to do, the kind of job that would make me respectable. I’d carry my lunch to work and treat my colleagues to their favorite difficult coffee orders. But even as I flirted with these paths, a quiet voice inside me whispered, “No.” Not because those jobs were inherently bad, but because they weren’t mine. They weren’t the life I wanted, and I knew it. But that knowing didn’t make the fear go away.
Because here’s the thing about 25: the world doesn’t prepare you for it. It prepares you for the milestones before — school graduations, the first paycheck, moving out of wherever you grew up and paying rent. But no one tells you what to do when those milestones are behind you, when you’re standing in the wide-open field, in the dark, and you hear gunfire and can’t read the compass on your phone to get out of there. There’s just an overwhelming sense of expectation and a vague idea of what you want. It’s terrifying. And it’s isolating, because everyone else seems to be managing just fine.
Except they’re not. Not really.
The friend who landed the “perfect” job is crying in the bathroom stall every lunch break, wondering when’s the right time to ask his boss if he’s about to be fired for all the mistakes. That person you met on the first day of college orientation who married their college sweetheart is quietly wondering if their one-year hoe phase was long enough. The cousin who bought the house, had the baby, and checked all the boxes by 26 is lying awake at night, wondering why happiness still feels so out of reach. At 25, so many of us are putting on our masks that make us look brave, forgetting what Shel Silverstein told us about blue skin, while silently panicking. And yet, we’re afraid to admit it, because vulnerability feels like weakness in a world that prizes appearances.
So we cope. Some of us lean into the pressure, trying to force ourselves into molds that don’t fit. Others rebel, rejecting structure entirely in favor of chaos. And then there are those who find themselves paralyzed, unable to move in any direction for fear of choosing wrong. It’s not until later — sometimes at the very end — that we realize the choices we make at 25 aren’t as final as they seem. The world doesn’t end if you pick the wrong job or take a detour. Life has a way of course-correcting, of nudging us back toward ourselves. We’re just water in a rushing creek at moving around the boulders someone threw in thinking it’d add character.
But telling that to a 25-year-old doesn’t always help. Because when you’re in it, it feels like the stakes couldn’t be higher. It feels like you’re one wrong step away from ruin, like you’ll be stuck forever if you make the “wrong” choice. And that’s the real cruelty of 25: it’s a time when you’re supposed to take risks, but it’s also a time when everything conspires to make you feel small and scared and unsure.
I don’t have a perfect solution or answer, but here’s what I’ve come to believe: the best thing we can do for 25-year-olds — for ourselves at any age — is to give each other permission to fail, to flounder, to figure it out as we go. Then to find ways to support each other through it all. We have to remind each other that it’s okay to not have everything figured out. That it’s okay to be fickle, to take the hard road, to choose uncertainty over comfort if that’s what your soul is calling for.
At 25, I was terrified of regret. Terrified that if I didn’t make the “right” choice, my life would fall apart. What I didn’t realize then is that regret doesn’t come from choosing wrong. It comes from not choosing at all. For me at least. From settling for the flotation device when you could have kept swimming.
To anyone reading this, especially if you’re 25 or somewhere near it: the pressure you’re feeling isn’t your fault. It’s the weight of a society that prioritizes stability over joy, appearances over authenticity. You can put the weight down. You can give yourself the grace to try that thing and fail at that thing and try that thing again. Because at 25, you’re not supposed to have it all figured out. You’re just supposed to start. Start dreaming those dreams that give you the good goose bumps, start building the life you want with the people you want in it, start building the days you want to wake up to and the nights you want to stumble home in. Start becoming the person you want to be. And if you need a flotation device along the way, that’s okay too. Just don’t mistake it for the destination. And while this is about being 25, don’t let me — or anyone else — put an age on when it’s all supposed to come together; it’s just as valid if you’re 42 or 53 and shifting pieces to find where they go.
“Almost” means you’re still in motion. Still trying. Keep swimming until you find the way to land — the way to yourself.
At 25, I almost walked into a life I didn’t want. Almost.
