Staying in Your Lane
By: Susannah Green
“Stay in your lane”.
This was one of the best pieces of advice I received from a professor a month before graduating from Hillsdale College. It is one that I have carried with me and reminded myself of often in the past year and a half since graduating. Four months after leaving Hillsdale I moved to Seville, Spain to teach for a year. I did not know anyone, my Spanish was paltry, and all of my closest friends were four months into their 9-5, salaried, career girl jobs in various cities across the U.S. Despite my fear, this was one of the best decisions I have made in my life, and I learned priceless lessons about identity and growing in my personhood.
As soon as I left Hillsdale, it felt like suddenly all of my best friends who I had just been in the same stage of life with were now moving to different cities, beginning new career paths, and starting families. We were all starting our own unique and exciting, but very different, adventures. This was the first time I did not immediately have a “definition” to cling to such as “student” or “Chi Omega” or “English major”. I saw opportunity in this, but I also was terrified to be making decisions completely on my own of which all the joys or consequences would be mine to deal with.
Knowing who you are as a person means knowing the “why” behind your decisions. In order to figure out your “why”, one must think through each decision with prayer, intentionality, and care. When questions of self-doubt arise such as “why am I even doing this anyway?” or “should I be doing what she is doing?”, it is necessary to stay grounded and remember why you have made your choice when everyone else is doing something different. Rather than spending time comparing yourself to your friends or peers, it is more valuable to take time to think through decisions on your own and then stick to your personal convictions. Growing in personal identity means seeking wisdom and advice in decision making, choosing what you want to do even if no one else in your circle is doing it, and then remembering your “why”.
It can be good to sit in feelings of discomfort because from these, growth comes. Before I left for Spain, I found it very uncomfortable to be alone. It was one of the things I was most apprehensive about, but one of the ways I grew the most throughout the year. In my first couple months in Spain it was uncomfortable to not have many substantial conversations with people because I did not have friends yet, to travel alone, and to have all the freedom to create a daily routine for myself. Though it felt very opposite to what I had been used to, I needed to figure out ways to manage life on my own. I found that running, reading, learning to enjoy cooking, putting myself out there and entering a room with a whole new crowd of people, or going to church alone actually helped me grow to crave and enjoy time by myself. I found joy in something that had been stressful to me, but this required welcoming discomfort while also choosing to dig into the things I knew I enjoyed. Rather than running from good things that intimidate you, choose to channel that discomfort towards seeking growth, learning, and service. You might be surprised at the ways you grow as a person.
Life in your twenties holds so much opportunity for exciting adventures and fun, but it can also be intimidating and filled with much uncertainty. Meg Jay in her book, The Defining Decade, says, “Even if you do nothing, not making choices is a choice all the same. Don’t be defined by what you didn’t know or didn’t do.” It is important to gain courage and grit in learning to make decisions for yourself. “Staying in your lane” means having the courage to take risks, thinking through your decisions with intentionality, and then choosing to grow through discomfort. You don’t need to move to Spain in order to do this, but rather, staying in your lane means sticking to your own personal decisions and convictions even if your life path looks different than your closest friends.
