Since the past three weeks have been some of the most fast paced, deadline-filled weeks I’ve ever experienced, this week’s topic hits home. Whether you’re feeling the aftermath of recent midterms, or your life has decided that you didn’t deserve a break, it’s pretty easy to feel the pressures of adulthood creeping up on you with every bill or essay due. However, when I began to feel lost in this tunnel of success, I came to a realization and asked myself who the hell am I trying to please?

With holiday gatherings full of turkey legs approaching, as college students I assume we’re all too familiar with pressing questions from family members like: “What are you going to do after graduation?” and “When exactly are you graduating?” If you’re like me, you’ll give vague yet accomplished answers and silently pray that the interrogation will end. But I feel like it’s time, as hardworking students, to answer that for ourselves before we awkwardly answer deadline-ridden questions for others. 

I honestly used to think that I needed to have a degree before I made whatever change in the world I wanted to see. Surprisingly enough, the answer was in something that I did everyday for The Paisano: writing. It was only then that I realized, as generic as it sounds, that in a day and age where you constantly see young people who are extremely successful, the social pressures that define adulthood should be up to your own standard and no one else’s. Not your parent’s standard, your friend’s standard or your partner’s standard — only your standard of success. 

While it’s obvious I don’t have my degree, and I’m not landing major cases as an attorney yet, I feed and challenge the minds of those who bother to read this column every week. I work hard at my part-time job and drag myself to class despite how sick I am, or if I sat in a puddle of water at the bus stop on the way to school. I try my best, so if things don’t go as planned, I can say that I gave it everything that I’ve got. That’s my standard of success at age 20 what’s yours?  

For my fellow adulters,

Xoxo, 

Big Sis