Remember how when you were younger, all you wanted to do was grow up and be able to do all things adult-like? Then, when you finally began to get some responsibility and your schedule gets a little busy you feel grown and important. Well, at least I did. Soon enough, you're juggling three jobs, school, and extracurriculars, and all you really want to do is sleep.

This is me currently.

I have reached the phase in life where I have gained so much responsibility in such a short period of time, I no longer am excited to be adding things to my to-do list. At the same time, I want to keep expanding my resume, networking, meeting friends for a night out, job hunting, and looking at future houses. I have realized that there just is no medium.

My friend and I were talking the other day, and she brought up a really good point. The time period between being a tween and becoming a full-blown adult is really very short. If you do the math, there is only a 10-year difference between age 11 and age 21.

So we are supposed to learn how to be an adult in 10 little years!?

This may not sound like a short amount of time to some people, but when you really think about it, we are being asked to:

• Fight through puberty (middle school)

• Find our identity (high school)

• Re-find the identity we thought we found in high school, build our careers, build relationships, attempt to graduate on time, and deal with whatever else college throws at us,

AND MORE!

This is completely unrealistic in such a short amount of time. If you think about it, this span of 10 years is probably the most detrimental of all. From ages 1-10, you don't really have to do anything for yourself. After anything past 22, you at least have the hang of being independent (hopefully).

So really, 11-21 will most likely be the hardest decade of your life.

I think we should cut ourselves a little more slack when transitioning into this adult phase of life. Yes, we want to live on our own and be able to support ourselves, but let's start making sure we are ready to do so before jumping into it. I know not everyone has a choice, but those who do should choose wisely.

I am slowly learning this and hope to see more of my generation do the same. At the end of the day, we want to be able to sustain and flourish, not just getting by.