One of the herculean tasks of young adulthood, many will say, is finding yourself. In the TV show, "Avatar: The Last Airbender," the young Prince Zuko goes through such an intense identity crisis that who he has been and who he sees himself becoming is a war against each other, making him feverish and delusional. In the midst of his crisis, his wise mentor, Iroh, tells him, “It’s time for you to look inward and ask yourself the big question: Who are you, and what do you want?”
While identity and life purpose are undeniably important, I think Iroh’s advice is not appropriate for all young people, or even most young people. Zuko suffered all kinds of pressures and traumas as a child, and they literally scarred him for life. His father stripped him of honor and banished him for committing an honest, minor mistake.
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Much of the TV show focuses on Zuko’s quest to regain his honor and his father’s love by capturing the Avatar, who poses a threat to his father’s rule.
Does this remind you of your own life? I thought not.
Most of the time, our lives are not in upheaval, and we don’t have someone directing every move. In fact, as they grow older, many young people begin to wish for someone to tell them what to do with their lives. They have thought hard about it, explored various interests, changed majors 11 times and traveled the world, but they still can’t find who they are or what they want.
Eventually, you become OK with it.
You learn that it’s something to be solved and discovered your whole life. It’s hard. If the sapling could imagine itself growing over years and years to become a towering oak, it would spend all its energy imagining and none of it actually growing. Who you are and what you are supposed to do are not static; they change and grow and feel different at different times.
The key is not to give up. Try things. Fail at things. Find little successes. Just keep going!
The other key (you’ll have a ring full of keys by the time you’re done here) is to ask for help. Find people you can really confide in without fear of judgment. Zuko would have crashed and burned a hundred times throughout "Avatar" without the guidance and counsel of Iroh.
One last thought: Don’t be afraid to be ordinary. You don’t have to save the whales or cure cancer or even travel the world to have a meaningful life. I know a lot of young people shy away from marriage or buying a house or other traditional, conventional steps into adulthood.
Certainly don’t do any of these things just because they’re expected of you, but neither should you ignore the joys present in a peaceful, ordinary life. Iroh says somewhere else in the show, “There’s nothing wrong with a life of peace and prosperity.”
If Iroh says it, it must be true!
