Yesterday, my friends and I were in town looking for a place to take pictures. We stumbled on a burnt house. There is something profound about finding an abandoned burnt house. Little did I know, that would be a symbol for the lesson one was about to learn that day.
I am one that believes that the Lord communicates to us through signs and symbols. The wind whistling through dead branches carries a message from the Heavens. The texture of the tree stump has messages embedded in it from a hundred years ago. All around us, there are messages for us to hear; only if we take the time to listen to them.
And so it was for me with the burnt down house. This now a house was once a home. Observing the house, you realise that it did not burn from the outside. The fire that took it down came from within. Think about it. Inside the house, a child played perhaps. A mother cooked Sunday meals for all to enjoy. A father arrived late evenings and placed all his burdens on a table that could have been his study. The house had a lovely chimney that was still intact in the inside. One could not help but imagine the warmth it brought, especially now during these iconic cold winters of Harrismith. This was someone’s home.
Yes, it is true. It could have been a den of thieves. It could have been a drug house where people lost their souls to a worldly substance. However, on that day, the message I received was that the house was once a home. A lovely environment and that message that I heard from the house made itself more clearer during the course of the day.
As my friends and I left the house to go purchase coffee, we started talking about the events of the day. Some of the events we spoke about left one in awe and in disbelief. But the theme that stuck with us yesterday is the fact that, our twenties is the most difficult period to be alive in. When you are a teenager, you can get away with a number of things. I literally got 22% of Sotho but somehow passed my grade 9. Some of my friends were caught in the wildest of parties yet none of them was arrested. In one’s teenage years, a mistake is seen as that of someone growing up. And this is true because these decisions are usually driven by spikes of hormones. As my sister used to say, in those periods, it’s just a stage you going through.
When you over 30, from the 30 year olds one observes, at that point in time no one really cares about you. Chances are that you make a decision, and whatever that decision is, you will be fully accountable for it. Yes, elders will try to guide you and show you a higher path but all rights are reserved by your judgement. At that point in life, you are your own person.
Before that, comes the most trying times. The twenties. I believe this time is so trying because of the amount of pressure that is exerted on the twenty year old. In your twenties, you likely to finish your first degree. That comes with the expectation that you have to be employed shortly afterwards. Some friends are fortunate that success smiles on them early and they begin to reap more rewards in life. This indirect peer pressure lays on your shoulders. You begin searching for ways to accumulate the same success; usually this is a sure way for your first downfall. Simply because you seeking to emulate someone else’s path of success and not find your own.
And because you are in twenties, it is expected for you to begin acting like an adult. A quick transition of teenage hood to adulthood is too swift to equip most with the necessary skills to be a matured adult. But time waits for no man and therefore, you learn as you go.
That’s not all. Some of your friends find stable relationships and give birth to beautiful marriages. These marriages produce beautiful babies and once more, the pressure weighs on you. You begin to wonder where your soulmate is so that you too can be loved and valued by a single individual. You overlook the costs of raising a child and you simply desire one. However, these are not temporary decisions. They are permanent.
The rabbit hole goes deeper. Some people, this pressure prompts them to seek validation of some kind. They seek to find meaning in anything. I believe this is why you find people masquerading for social media- where validation is a click or a double tap away. It is easy to find many people posting facades of their lives on social media in order to find validation. It is true, some of these people are making substantial amounts of money from social media platforms. Yet, the same does not hold true for most. The pressure to be someone of relevance take place and many fall to it.
The challenge of the twenties is that, it comes with no warning. One becomes an adult almost overnight. That sudden shock, that sudden explosive of reality gets many in a whirl of disaster. It is in this period that many fall from grace. The young athlete who dominated high school tracks is no longer as fast and hangs his pride daily with a bottle of beer. The young artist who decorated the high school halls with art finds himself no longer being able to transform the mundane into the extraordinary and thus drowns himself in drugs “seeking inspiration” to awe the world once more. The beautiful female who got every male head turning suddenly cracks under the pressure to maintain that high standard of beauty. She crumbles and finds herself settling for a life that she never envisioned for herself, all in the name of security and finding solace in whatever forms it comes.
There are many stories of many people that fall from grace in their twenties. Some get excited with their first pay checks and find themselves financially indebted a fewer years later. Yes, it is true, that for some, their twenties is where they find their true meaning to life. This is seen with the young female who falls pregnant and the motivation to be the best mother for her child; this female elevates herself to higher path of life. This is seen with the young male who is fed up living with his parents and begins to work intensely on himself so that he can be a king of his own castle.
It is safe to say that when one is in their twenties, they are entering their cocoon. They are entering their phase of metamorphosis, and their change comes from the inside. Only when the cocoon cracks from the external pressure does the creature inside become deformed. If the cocoon is placed in a safe place and created to be solid enough to withhold external pressures, then only can sound transformation take place. But it is important to remember, we go into a stage of transformation. The key difference is that as humans, we have the power to decide our fate. We can choose to transform into a butterfly who enjoys the scent of flowers and is adorned by all, or we can choose to transform into a moth; forever seeking the light at the end of the tunnel.
Our transformation comes from the power of decision making that we have. Like that burnt down house, our destruction can come from within. A seed we plant ignorantly in our twenties can lead us to a transformation that we do not desire later in life. It is easier to place the seed in the ground than it is to root out whole tree. Therefore, it is wise to carefully consider the fruits of trees we wish to live off in the future, and plant accordingly now in the present.
The twenties is one crazy period of any individual. It is a phase that separates the girls from the women. It is a phase that separates the boys from the men. It is phase in which you become who you will be for the rest of your life. The twenties is a crucial period of anyone's existence.