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Shumita Basu, Narrating: This is "In Conversation" from Apple News. I'm Shumita Basu. Today, for the second part in our "Think Again" series, finding yourself and your purpose in early adulthood.
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Basu, Narrating: In my early 20s, when I was still in college, I was faced with what felt like a huge, huge life decision. I'd been accepted to two different summer internships. One was in D.C. interning for a senator's office, which could pave the way to a career in politics or policy. The other was in India working for an NGO in a rural area, which didn't have such a clear career path laid out after it but seemed meaningful and important to experience. Part of what made that decision so hard for me was it really felt like if I chose the wrong path, I could be making some big, irreversible, life-altering mistake.
Satya Byock: It's so profound to really identify that we have two completely different parts of us that might be leading us in two completely different directions. And then try to make sense of what to do? What do you listen to? What part of you do you really trust?
Basu, Narrating: That's Satya Doyle Byock. She's a psychotherapist who works with people trying to figure out their early adulthood, which makes her the right kind of hands-on expert for our "Think Again" series all about big life transitions.
Byock: It's not just about picking the right single path. It's about honoring that there is a push and pull and a tug inside of us. We need to find that middle way and find our way to ourselves.
Basu, Narrating: Last week, we spoke with Shankar Vedantam, host of the "Hidden Brain" podcast, about what's happening in our brains during times of transition. Today, we're diving into one of life's early transitions, stepping into adulthood.
Satya has written a book and newsletter dedicated to this particular developmental stage, which she calls Quarterlife. And right off the bat, she says that struggle I was feeling between an internship that seemed practical and prestigious versus one that was more experiential and grounding is super typical of the decisions we face in this life stage.
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Byock: I think we put so much effort into talking to Quarterlifers, young adults, about career paths and these questions of security and setting them up for linear goals. And we don't really attend to the fact that these are actually whole people that are coming of age. They're not just parts of the economy. They are whole people. So that collision is really what defines these years of Quarterlife, and it's a huge struggle. It's hard to even quantify or define how complicated it is.
Basu: If you had to categorize the main challenges, what buckets would you build out?
Byock: Well, I talk about stability and meaning as two primary buckets, right? So, stability is everything from communication and relationships. But it's also basic survival of being able to get a job and hold a job. And maybe you're working minimum wage. How do you actually pay bills? And quite literally, how do you pay bills? How do you stay on top of debt? How do you pay taxes? What does that look like? Uh, how do you do laundry? You know, all these basics, what we now call adulting, that we encounter periodically and that we often haven't been trained in. So, I talk about the bucket of stability, which is really security and survival. And then, there's the bucket of meaning, of really defining who you are as an individual, what you want in the world, what you want your life to look like. And also questions of intimacy and connection that are more subtle, that are very profound and very important for our lives.
Basu: See, I like the way that you talk about this in your book because you describe these two things, the stability and meaning, as being two parts of the self. Not that you're choosing one over the other, but that you kind of have to figure out how you want them to interact together and what kind of harmony you want to achieve. So how do you coach people through thinking through that?
Byock: Well, we first start by really honoring that these are two simultaneous goals and that we are not actually just setting off into adulthood to deal with stability goals, which I think is how most of us are kind of raised. You're sort of taught that now is the time to get real, to join real life, to step into the real world, and you are supposed to focus on stability and security and survival as kind of foundational questions. But there are always these questions of meaning and purpose happening internally, and that is coming more and more to the fore.
Basu: I mean, college to a lot of people represents this sort of step, this rite of passage, and I understand not everybody goes to college. But often, college is sort of sold as this transition point. You leave your home. You move out of the house often. How do you see college as fitting into this big transition of understanding yourself?
Byock: There's freedom to explore who we are, but we don't actually have a proper transition to honor that freedom and to encourage exploration. Instead, what we have, for a lot of people, is enormously expensive, highly structured programs that kind of are leading you to the economy, but not really. Right? And so, if in fact what college were, were four years to deeply explore who you are, to engage with other cultures, to engage with various career paths, to test oneself, and maybe engage with rigorous programs of study or learning, that would be amazing. I think after four years, many of us would have a better sense of oh, this is what I want for my life. This is where I'm headed. Instead, we kind of lock people in. And with the amount of debt that is required and with the investment, it's actually a great deal of pressure.
Basu: Mm. Completely.
Byock: So, people often graduate more with fear than they do with really a sense of self-knowledge.
Basu: Mm. Say more about that. I'm so curious to hear you speak a little bit more about this idea of self-knowledge.
Byock: There's so little emphasis on self-knowledge. And in fact, when it comes up, we really kind of deride young people for being navel-gazing or narcissistic. And so again, we put them in a bind. Self-knowledge, you know, with your example of trying to decide are you going to do this prestigious internship, or are you going to pursue this kind of soul calling to go to India, that required a moment or a long period of deeply identifying your own wants and needs and checking in with yourself. That is itself a skill, and when we don't support people coming of age to be able to engage with themselves and be curious about themselves, we're really hampering their ability to be in the world because we are, in fact, each individuals sorting out what we want and what we're curious about and what future we envision. And so, the greatest tool we can really be providing people is one that surrounds the idea of self-knowledge, of how do you learn about your wants and dreams? How do you learn about your vulnerabilities and your insecurities and then make decisions based on that information versus based on your frontal lobe and facts and information? That can help in many, many situations, but it really does not provide much value when we're trying to make deep life decisions.
Basu: So, to go back to my college story for a second, I did take that internship in India. And I've never regretted it. It was one of the most important experiences of my early life, really. But let's say it hadn't gone that way. Say I took the D.C. internship, and then a few weeks into it, I came to you as my psychotherapist and said, "Satya, I'm feeling so much regret, and I just can't help but think that maybe I made the wrong choice. What would you tell me?"
Byock: Well, this may not be a popular thing, what I'm gonna say, but I really encourage folks at that point to genuinely take stock and consider the possibility that they need to actually go do what their heart is calling them to do, which means quitting possibly the D.C. job, which will be even harder than turning it down in the first place.
Basu: Right.
Byock: And actually, then listening to their deeper self. It's an unpopular perspective because it really… It really means that regret isn't just about not worrying about it or sort of forgiving oneself. All of that is true, but there's also still probably a deep part that is saying no. Really, we need to go in a different direction. And I find that life is infinitely more satisfying and beautiful and expansive when we trust this inner voice to actually give us information and to actually combat the rational, practical mind that we've been trained as sort of the only way to make decisions. There is another part of us, and if we can listen to that, life gets a lot more fun.
Basu: You know, I think a really big part of this transition point for a lot of people is redefining the dynamic between themselves and their parents who they've long trusted to be that voice, I think, for a lot of their lives. Right? The voice that that decides and the voice that tells them what they should do. I imagine that's a really… This becomes a tricky transition point for a lot of people, right? Kind of transitioning from the parents as the voice or just older mentors, to relying on your own voice.
Byock: Absolutely. This is perhaps the most defining feature of this stage of life, and it's what I call in my book separating. It's the stage or the pillar of growth that is defined by separating ourselves from past authority figures, past belief systems, past values, and it's not just physical separation. In fact, I think as a lot of midlife adults know, you can move thousands of miles away from your parents and still never really get distance from the voices that are happening inside of you telling you what you should be doing or what your, you know, what the right decisions are. So, a huge part of what I'm doing with Quarterlifers in therapy and what I'm encouraging Quarterlifers everywhere to do is to really take stock of the beliefs and values and ways of defining themselves that have been sort of ingrained into them based on the messages they were raised with from their parents and from other adults in their lives. And to just start allowing those things to break apart a little bit to… I sometimes use the word… "Interrogate" those things. And I don't mean that in a particularly authoritarian way, but to really just explore, to ask ourselves are these my beliefs? Are these my values? Do I think this about myself, or was that message told to me? So, a lot of this work is both about separating that information from within our systems, but also redefining relationships with our parents and with the adults in our life.
Basu: Mm. Oh, say more about that. This is a topic that I love to bring up. I say that the change between being my parents' child to being the adult child of my parents was a really big one that I feel like is really under scrutinized.
Byock: It really is, and it's so critical because we are so deeply interwoven with each other. So, I want to encourage all parents to truly honor that their children are becoming separate from them in every way. Their children aren't gonna tell them everything. They shouldn't be telling them everything. They are going to have not just secrets because they're hiding something, but they're gonna have private lives, and they're gonna be private people, and when somebody's going to choose what they want to share, there needs to be trust, and there needs to be respect, and there needs to be respect for them as adults and not as the five-year-old you may still remember them as.
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Basu, Narrating: So, to recap what we've heard so far, Satya is saying entering adulthood is all about crafting your own identity, and there's a few helpful questions you should try asking yourself. Think about stability and meaning not as competing ideas, but as two parts of you. How do you want to balance them? And when it comes to values, ask yourself do I believe in this because my parents or someone else told me it's important, or is it truly important to me?
Satya says this is the time to rethink your relationship with your parents. Ask yourself how you need that relationship to change.
Byock: And all of that transformation ideally takes conversation. It might be letter writing. It might be starts and stops and attempts at dialogue. It might mean really strong boundaries if that's not possible.
Basu, Narrating: Another useful exercise is to think about people you admire, people who you look up to.
Byock: Maybe they're people who have passed away. Maybe they're even fictional characters, but other humans that just sort of make your heart sing or even make you feel jealous or have a sense of longing. Or maybe it kicks up some feeling of envy. We're gonna then define why, in specificity, those people are calling to them and pick apart, bit by bit, sort of the themes of how those people are connected and how they're reflecting us back to ourselves.
Basu, Narrating: Let's say that person is an aunt who's a doctor. Do you admire her because she gets to help people? Because she makes a lot of money? Because she's well respected? Parsing that will help you figure out what you're actually chasing in life.
And finally, if you're feeling lost or torn about what to do like I was back in college, Satya recommends an exercise to help you figure things out.
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Byock: So, this exercise is to sort of draw two stick figures. I mean, I use the stick figures 'cause I can't draw an actual picture to save my life. So, you can also draw proper images. But it's sort of creating two different personalities, and it's really not about thinking about two different personalities you wanna be. It's listening in to these two different parts that are tugging in different directions. So, for you, it would be the side who really did want to pursue this internship in D.C., and you kind of create that person's life on the page, and you explore what she's gonna look like and what clothes she's gonna wear, and, you know, who she is already innately in herself. And you do the other for the part of you that is wanting to go to India. You explore who is this person inside of me? What does she look like? Who are her friends? What is the life that she's living? And by doing this, we kind of enhance the picture of our two separate sides and make them whole beings unto themselves so we can learn more about the conflict that is happening inside of us not just as kind of an awkward feeling or an awkward tension, but almost as a relationship of two sides of ourselves trying to find wholeness.
Basu: Hm. And I like how you describe it as two sides of the self. It's not about one side being right. [CHUCKLES] Right? Or one side being wrong.
Byock: Absolutely. I mean, I think, again, if we can kind of use your example, what I would imagine… I, of course, I don't know you well, um, but my sense is that that sort of D.C. person has come back and become a very important part of your career. She maybe didn't get that same internship or pursue that same track, but that person, all of her qualities, all of her longings have interwoven into this side who did choose to go to India and have this more expansive experience traveling. They've rejoined, I would imagine, to become really, truly who you are now and the work and the life that you're creating now. These two sides have probably come into deeper union.
Basu: That's so interesting that you say that because that really hadn't occurred to me. [CHUCKLES] Really. But I think you're getting at something exactly right. I saw them as two separate tracks, but the more that I'm thinking about it in your framework, actually, it's just… It's two sides of the same coin.
Byock: That's right.
Basu: And I think I've kind of flipped back and forth over the years.
Byock: Beautiful. You're doing it right.
Basu: You've done such a nice job of keeping this really grounded in the specific personal experience. But if we could zoom out for just a second and think of it from a societal level, how would you redesign society to help young people have the structure and the infrastructure needed for this period to be really a time of life to figure out who you are?
Byock: Wow, my great dream. Oh, I really… I would change so many things. I would first of all make living wages, paid internships, free education, universal healthcare a given. I would change the way that the police state and the justice system views young adults as adults the second they turn 18 and really shift punitive culture that is so frequently focused on people coming of age to one of acceptance and understanding and curiosity. I would really make psychological support and financial support the front lines for supporting people becoming adults, becoming independent humans instead of what is too frequently an obstacle course. I would create or recreate mentorship programs and enhance the idea of what it is to be an elder in our culture so that we actually have adults everywhere who are not just offering platitudes, like "You'll figure it out, and it'll get easier." But to really be sitting deeply, hour after hour with people coming of age to support them to learn on a deeper level what it is to be human. There would be a whole cultural infrastructure providing a pathway from childhood into meaningful adulthood that really is not just based on the economy or survival. It would be based on what kind of full, beautiful life can we envision, and how do we get there?
Basu: Yeah. It sounds like a lot of what you're saying is about community, really, fostering a sense of community. Um, I have a couple of ideas. Can I tell you mine?
Byock: Oh, my gosh. I would love to hear them.
Basu: So, one thing that I think everyone should do, and I wish was structured in a more specific way, is some kind of gap year.
Byock: Yeah.
Basu: I just think that young people need some kind of year where they do something that gives them a sense of scale, [CHUCKLES] gives them a sense of they're just a speck of sand in the world. And if they go out there and did something with themselves for a year, they could have a very fulfilling year experiencing a different life.
Byock: I agree completely. And if we could find a way to truly sponsor self-exploration in that way, travel, you know, absolutely. Whether it's a gap year or a gap five years…
Basu: Ooh. Gap five years. I like that. You're thinking big.
Byock: Yeah.
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But that's right because once you then actually choose a career path, you have a much better sense of what you wanna be doing and where you wanna be going at that point. So, I'm with you totally.
Basu: Yeah. And the other thing that I think would be so great to somehow mandate for people very early in their lives is community service. I feel really strongly that this changes your sense of self. It changes your identity within a community. For me, what my mom did when we were young… And my parents are both immigrants to this country. My mom came from Iran. My dad came from India, so we didn't have a lot of family here. It was me and my brother and my parents. And we didn't have elders in our life. And my mom would take us on a weekly basis to a nursing home in town. She just wanted us to know what it meant to have relationships with elders and to love and respect them and to be children in their lives as well. And that was another really formative experience for me. It really… It shaped the way that I think about every elder person that I meet. And I'm so glad I had that when I would've otherwise been lacking that.
Byock: Absolutely. It's so powerful for you to say that. And what I love about what you express is it again is relational. It's about actually building connection and seeing each other. I agree in regards to, I would say, community engagement. I am all about service. I'm totally supportive of community service. But I think what happens when we talk about people coming of age is, again, we kind of trap people between not being adult enough and not being, how do I say this, sort of helpful enough or something. And so, if we mandate community service, there's also a sort of a feeling of you're supposed to be better people. You're supposed to be giving back. You're supposed to be helping our society. And so, to make it more of an exchange and being part of community and sharing each other's experiences and learning from each other, that is so powerful. To make it really about self-knowledge again as well just as you experienced of oh, this has been a really important part of my life. It's not just been about me helping people, which so many young people already experience that pressure. It's also just about being deeper in the fabric of what a community looks like.
Basu: Mm. I like that a lot. Do you have any advice for young people who might be listening? Or for anyone listening who just knows a young person and wants to support them in this really tricky time of defining the self. Any parting advice? Things to think about?
Byock: I guess I would say, you know, give yourself time truly, and really allow deep self-investigation. That doesn't mean it needs to interrupt taking practical steps in the world, but the tricky thing about being in Quarterlife is we are doing this dance all the time to both find ourselves and to survive day by day. So, I guess I would tell adults to really, you know, older adults to be kind, [CHUCKLES] um, to not just offer platitudes. It's such a harder stage of life than we realize.
Basu: And some more therapy probably wouldn't hurt.
Byock: Yeah. I mean, I'm a fan. But one that's not diagnostic necessarily or, um, or about problem solving, but allowing ourselves to find the answers that emerge over time.
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Basu: Yeah. Satya, thank you so much. I really enjoyed speaking with you about this.
Byock: Thank you. It was such a pleasure. I'm grateful for the conversation.
Basu, Narrating: Satya Doyle Byock's book, called "Quarterlife: The Search for Self in Early Adulthood," is available on Apple Books.
Next week in our "Think Again" series, I talk to journalist Jessica Grose about the transition into becoming a parent and how to redefine yourself all over again.
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Jessica Grose: There is this cultural notion that motherhood is supposed to be transformative, and it's supposed to transform you into this better person. And that is not a reasonable expectation because you're still a human being. You are still you.
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Basu, Narrating: Don't miss that episode. Be sure to follow "Apple News In Conversation" on Apple Podcasts.
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