Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This show is not a substitute for professional counseling and no relationship is created between the show host or guests and any listener. If you feel you are in need of professional mental health and are a UA student, we encourage you to contact the UA Counseling center at 348-3863. If you are not a UA student, please contact your respective counties crisis service hotline or their local mental health agency or insurance company. If it is an emergency situation, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Okay, it's six o' clock and time again for Brain Matters, the official radio show of the UA Counseling Center. We are broadcasting from the campus of the University of Alabama. Good evening. My name is Dr. B.J. guenther and I'm the host of the show along with my colleague and producer Kathryn Howell. And in case you don't know, the show is about mental and physical health issues that affect college students and in particular UA students. So you can listen to us each night each Tuesday night at 6pm on 90.7 FM or you can listen online at WVUAFM UA edu. You can also download your favorite app and I like the MyTuner radio app and just type in WVUAFM 90.7 and you can hear our shows there. Also, we've changed our email address so I try to ask for show topic items each week and I'm asking for them today.
If you have any show topic ideas for upcoming shows, we've scheduled out most of the shows for the remaining of this semester and we only do shows in the fall and in the spring. So I need some ideas for some show topics for the spring semester. So if you're listening and you have those ideas, this is our new email address. It's brainmattersradiovuafm.com and of course I'll consider using just about any show topic. Nothing's really off limits if it pertains to college mental health.
Catherine, just remember to help me give that email the new email address out for listeners today. We're talking about something almost every young adult and probably quite a few parents can relate to, and that's the anxiety of adulting. When are you actually supposed to feel like a grown up? I'm wondering that sometimes myself. Why can graduating from college, getting a job, managing money, navigating relationships, and figuring out who you are feel so overwhelming? And why does it sometimes seem like everyone else has adulthood figured out while you're still trying to find the instruction manual to help us understand the stage of life? I'm pleased to welcome Dr. Jeffrey Arnett. Dr. Arnett is a research professor of psychology at Clark University and widely recognized for his groundbreaking work on emerging adulthood, the period roughly between the late teens and twenties when young people are exploring their identities, relationships, careers, values, and what they want their adult lives to look like. He's also the author of Emerging the Winding Road from teens through the 20s. And his research has helped change the way psychologists and society think about the transition from adolescence to adulthood. So today we're talking about why becoming an adult can feel so uncertain and sometimes so anxiety provoking and whether perhaps we're putting too much pressure on young people to have their lives figured out before they're actually ready. That's a mouthful, Dr. Arnett, but thank you for being on the show.
[00:03:28] Speaker C: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: You've talked about this for a long, long, long time. You just mentioned before we went on the air that this has been your research for how many years of your life and why did you get interested in this topic?
[00:03:44] Speaker C: It's been my research for over 30 years, since I was close to that age myself and thinking to myself, wow, the 20s sure is an interesting decade. Why doesn't anybody study it?
[00:03:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:59] Speaker C: So I just started interviewing people and asked them all kinds of questions. I had a lot of questions of my own from just having experienced that age period.
And they were fascinating. I'd been studying adolescence before them, so people in their early to mid teens, and I enjoyed talking to them. But the emerging adults were far more interesting. And not just the college students. College students are great. I've taught them for decades and love them. But I really learned a lot from the ones who never gone to college and they dropped out of high school.
They'd had a child at 16 or they'd been in prison or they'd gone to work in construction or landscaping or something like that. That it doesn't require much training.
I just found them fascinating and they were so insightful and humorous and great to talk to about their lives. They were all thinking about their lives and where they are in life and where they want to get to in life.
So I've found them fascinating ever since and I still really enjoy talking to them every time I I think that
[00:05:15] Speaker B: age group gets a bad rap. I really do. I think this age group gets a bad rap. I remember when I started with in private practice and no one in this town really wanted to work with that age group, you know, teenagers, adolescents, young adults, because they were seen as difficult. And for me it was exciting and it was fun and it was never boring. And it's still never boring to work with this age group. And I'm sure you can agree with that.
[00:05:45] Speaker C: I hope they get a lot of criticism.
I agree with you certainly about how much fun they are to work with, but they get a lot of criticism. I think it's mostly misplaced. The thing is, people do take longer to grow up than they used to. There's no doubt about that. And I was writing about that over 30 years ago when I first started looking at this age period. Even then, people were staying in education longer than before. They were finding stable work later than before. They were entering marriage at a later age than previously. They were entering parenthood at a later age than previously on average.
And that has continued to be true in the decades I've been studying them. Those things have all gone just higher and higher.
And so sometimes, especially older folks, they look at those youngins today and they think, what's the matter with them? When I was 20, yes, I was engaged to be married.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: Right. I had two kids by the age of 21. You know, I hear that. Yeah.
[00:06:55] Speaker C: And you know, I was about to buy a house and my kids and all these other kids, I see, they're doing none of that stuff. What's the matter with them? Yeah, well, what's the matter with them is that they're different than you were. And that's maybe bad in some ways, but it's good in a lot of ways too.
That choice you were making at 20 for what kind of work to do, what kind of person to marry, maybe that wasn't choice that a 20 year old could make very well.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: That's right.
That's right. The world is different.
[00:07:31] Speaker C: Most of us can agree we make those big choices better at 25 or 30 than we would at 20.
So that's what's happened. This whole decade has opened up from about 18 to 29, where now it's not settled. A couple generations ago was your parents, your grandparents, they were settled into adult Life by about 20.
And now it's really true that 30 is the new 20.
Most people are settled till then and emerging adulthood is that fascinating thing that happens in between where people are on the way to adulthood but not there yet. And things can go just about anywhere for a long time there, including a lot of unexpected directions.
So it's become a new life stage.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: What about the term adulting?
What is it about that term? What does it actually mean? And why has it become so common with young adults?
[00:08:39] Speaker C: It means doing the Things that we understand to be part of building an adult life, like getting a stable job, like moving out of your parents household, like looking for and hopefully finding a stable romantic partner, like paying your own bills, making whatever job you're doing, to be financially independent. Those are the kinds of things that we mean when we say adulting.
And they do take longer than they used to and they're challenging. In many ways today that's different from before. It's not worse than before. In many ways it's better than before because people have more opportunities than they used to, especially women. I mean, if you think about your grandma and maybe your mother, what was her range of choices when she was 18 or 19 or 20, teaching, like most nursing generation, there weren't many.
Think of your grandmother. She probably got married young, started having babies.
She may have been a very smart woman, but 50 years ago and ever before, it didn't matter. She was not going to be a doctor, lawyer, CEO, business owner. That's right, it didn't matter. She didn't have any opportunity to develop her talents. And now she does. Now these women who are her granddaughters, they are doing amazing things.
And the lives of women have changed beyond recognition. The range of opportunities available to women has changed in ways their grandmothers could not have even imagined.
And that's wonderful, but it's hard. It makes life harder.
Great. But now it's more complicated, you know, now you got to choose and life isn't laid out for you step by step the way it was 50 years ago. Now you got to make it yourself. Now you got to construct it. And that is exhilarating, but also anxiety provoking.
[00:11:08] Speaker B: Do you think the, because of the number of choices now that are out there, has that has made it harder on young adults?
[00:11:19] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: As opposed to what you were just talking about. If you, you know, if you were back in the 50s, you kind of knew what you know, you had smaller choices and maybe it didn't make it as difficult because you knew you were what you were going to do.
[00:11:32] Speaker C: Absolutely. Anxiety is inevitably provoked by opportunity because now you have to choose. And now you have dreams that again, your grandmother couldn't have imagined.
But now you have to try to reach those dreams. And you may not, you may not. In a way, it was easy for your grandmother because she didn't get to choose. It may be kind of depressing, it
[00:11:59] Speaker B: was cut and dry. That's right.
[00:12:00] Speaker C: But there's less anxiety because she married the boy next door down the street or in her high school class and started Having babies and she had a busy life and she had plenty to do.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:12:15] Speaker C: And she had anxieties of her own. No doubt. But what should I do with my life? Was not one of them.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: No. And that is a big pressure. I hear this all the time from students coming in.
You coined the term emerging adulthood, Right. What exactly is emerging adulthood? And why do you believe it deserves to be considered a distinct stage of life?
[00:12:42] Speaker C: That's a good question. When I first started interviewing them, I thought of them as late adolescence.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:12:51] Speaker C: Because I thought of adolescence as this stage that happens before you reach adulthood. Well, now people are reaching adulthood later by any measure.
So this was just a late adolescence. And I discovered a couple of things when I started interviewing them. First of all, they hated being called adolescents.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:13:10] Speaker C: They were not 12 year olds in middle school.
So it was kind of idiotic to be called adults.
[00:13:17] Speaker B: It's insulting. Yes.
[00:13:19] Speaker C: An adolescent. And the other thing was, again, I'd been studying adolescence. I knew adolescence. They were so much different.
They were not minors under the law. They were not going to middle school or high school. They were not living with their parents. By and large, they were not going through puberty.
And so I thought, wow, they're not adolescents, but they're not fully adults. And when I asked them, do you think you reached adulthood?
They mostly didn't say yes and they didn't say no.
They said, well, I'm adult in some ways, but not others. And so I thought, well, to be true to them and what they're telling me, I'll call them emerging adults. That's how they describe themselves.
[00:14:03] Speaker B: Yes.
That's perfect. And it's not.
I have to catch myself even here when I'm talking to students because coincidentally, I had a student right before starting this show.
She mentioned herself.
She, she alluded to somebody else that she knows that is not much older than her, but said that they are an adult. So that made me think she's not considering herself an adult even though she's 18.
[00:14:35] Speaker C: Right. Few 18 year olds consider themselves.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: I know.
[00:14:39] Speaker C: And that has a lot to do with how people think about adulthood. That's changed a lot too.
So it used to be adulthood was defined by things like moving out of your parents house, finish your education, getting married, being married.
[00:14:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:59] Speaker C: But now people don't define it that way. And that was one of the fascinating things I found in my early research that was really surprising to me.
Instead, they defined adulthood for themselves and others in terms of more intangible gradual psychological characteristics, particularly these three criteria that People mention over and over again. I took to calling them the big three because they come up so often. Number one is accept responsibility for yourself. That word responsibility is huge. It's a big one and has a lot of different means for people. But responsibility for yourself is big. Second is making your own decisions, making independent decisions.
And then third is becoming financially independent.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: I would have thought that would have been the biggest one.
[00:15:50] Speaker C: That's more concrete, but it's also gradual. So now adulthood is not one event like marriage, like having a baby, like moving out of your parents household. Now adulthood is gradually attaining these markers that are new ways of thinking about adulthood. And it takes time and it can be a rocky road. And you sometimes wonder, am I an adult or not? Well, I make some decisions myself but sometimes I really feel like I have to ask my mom or my dad. And so that's where this in between emerging feeling comes from.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I know some adults that feel like they still need to ask their mom or dad to be honest. You know, way older than 18.
Way older.
[00:16:45] Speaker C: I have 26 year old twins and I talk to my daughter every day right now. Yeah, she, my son's pretty settled but my daughter's not. And so she's still working through what kind of life she's going to make for herself. She just moved to Paris.
She loves the French language, she wants to study French literature.
Where better to do that than Paris? Well that's great but immersive.
Move to a city and make a life for yourself.
So every day I'm talking to her about where she might live and this job she just applied for. This afternoon I looked over her cover letter that she was submitting for a new job. She saw why not, you know why not?
[00:17:30] Speaker B: I mean that's what you're here for, right? You still feel needed too.
[00:17:34] Speaker C: I would never have thought of doing that with my parents. But my parents had five kids and you know, they were.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: That's a whole nother show.
That was a whole nother show.
[00:17:44] Speaker C: My dad was kind of a dad of his generation anyway. He, he wouldn't even know what knowing what to say. But this generation of parents is different. And I'm so much closer to my kids than I ever was to my dad. I mean that's all to me to that she will ask me. She really wants to know. She trusts me.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: Yes. And it's flattering to feel, to still feel needed, you know, when you have a 26 year old it is.
[00:18:11] Speaker C: Although to be honest, sometimes I wish that I wasn't still on duty all the time. You know, I'll be really happy when she finds her, but she will.
[00:18:22] Speaker B: She, she will. She will. This is just new to her. Yeah. Let's take our first break, and when we come back, let's talk about the Am I behind Phenomenon. That's what I'm calling it. So we'll be right back. You're listening to brain matters on 90.7 the capstone.
[00:18:47] Speaker C: Wvuafm Tuscaloosa.
[00:18:50] Speaker A: This show is not a substitute for professional counseling and no relationship is created between the show hosts and or guests and any listener. If you feel you are in need of professional mental health and are a UA student, we encourage you to contact the UA Counseling center at 348-3863. If you are not a UA student, please contact your respective counties crisis service hotline or their local mental health agency or insurance company. If it is an emergency situation, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: Hey, you're back listening to brain matters on 90.7 the Capstone. I'm BJ Gunther. We're talking tonight about the anxiety of adulting. I feel like I talk about this a lot with college students because it is scary, the uncertainty of the responsibilities that you have as an adult. I'm talking with Dr. Jeffrey Arnett, who has written how many books, Dr. Arnett? Is this the second book?
[00:19:53] Speaker C: No, I haven't counted lately, but it's, it's at least 10.
[00:19:56] Speaker B: He coined the term emerging adulthood, and that's really basically what we're talking about. When I left off for the break.
I'm calling this the am I behind Phenomenon because I feel like, especially in the spring semester, right before graduation, I feel like we get a little bit of a rush, graduating students who compare themselves to other people, other students. And we did a show about this last week. Our last week's show was called the Comparison Trap. And it was just about this, people comparing themselves to others when they think their other people's lives look better than theirs. But, you know, why is comparison, I guess, so powerful during emerging adulthood?
[00:20:43] Speaker C: Well, I think we do it at all ages, but I think in emerging adulthood because there is a lot of anxiety. Am I moving my life forward fast enough? Am I going to make a satisfying life for myself? I mean, it's very uncertain in your twenties what your life is going to look like.
People are in college, are often still deciding, gosh, what do I want to do? They're trying out different things, and then they pick something.
And often they decide by graduation, you know, I don't want to do this afterwards.
Now, that happens very frequently. It's really about identity development, as we say in psychology. It's really about deciding who you are, what kind of person you want to be.
And that's a big challenge. As we were saying earlier, we have so much freedom now that people didn't a couple generations ago.
And so now we have the burden of choice. Well, what kind of person do I want to be?
There are all these different kind of careers I could go into, what's most important to me.
And even if you find that thing that's most important to you, well, am I going to be able to do that? You know, am I smart enough to get into engineering school, law school?
You know, my daughter, can she make in French literature? You know, that's. That's not exactly a booming job area.
[00:22:19] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[00:22:19] Speaker C: You know, even if you're really talented, you're asking yourself, can I make it? Is this the right thing? Did I make the right choice? And if you include. If you conclude, no, I.
I don't want this after all.
Wow. Then there's a lot of anxiety. Geez, you feel guilty.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. We had. I think we had the vice provost at Stanford on last spring. And I'm embarrassed to say, I can't even remember the show, the title of the show, but I remember he talked about, and I was shocked at this, the large percentage of students who graduate with a degree and they do not work in that field.
[00:22:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: They do not use that degree for their career.
[00:23:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
Not that surprising if you think about it. I know people at the age of 18 or 19. Okay. Decide what you want to do with it.
[00:23:11] Speaker B: It's ridiculous.
[00:23:13] Speaker C: I mean, did you know. I didn't know I knew what I wanted.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: I still have doubts.
[00:23:20] Speaker C: You know, I wanted to go out and get drunk with my friends, but that. That was about my only time.
[00:23:26] Speaker B: Maybe you could have made a living doing that. I don't know. As an entertainer changed my life.
[00:23:32] Speaker C: I changed my mind 10 times before I decided to become an academic psychologist.
[00:23:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:38] Speaker C: How?
[00:23:38] Speaker B: How? I'm sorry. Go ahead.
[00:23:40] Speaker C: So it's. It's a lot to ask of people to make a choice at 18 or 19, and it's not surprising that they then change it.
[00:23:47] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:23:48] Speaker C: One or more times. Maybe.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: Maybe several times. Right.
What do you think is the impact of. This is an obvious question, but is adulting anxiety fueled by social media?
Yeah.
[00:24:06] Speaker C: You know, like every other kind of anxiety.
Right. I mean, social media gives people a lot of comfort. First of all, we shouldn't forget that.
Why do people do it? Well, it's because they get rewards from it. And the reward they get above all is connection.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:24:27] Speaker C: I mean, it's an amazing thing, really.
[00:24:28] Speaker B: You're right.
[00:24:29] Speaker C: Connect with people over such long distances, all day long, and it's instantaneous. And that people draw a lot of support from that, especially in emerging adulthood where you do typically leave home. And so you've left your mom, your dad, your siblings, your dog.
You've probably left your friends in your hometown to go to college, or even if you didn't go to college, maybe you moved somewhere else to take a job or because you wanted to live someplace and see what that was like. But there's a lot of being alone in emerging adulthood. Most people don't have a stable partner. 18, 19, even at 23 or 24. Most people.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:25:14] Speaker C: Some people find their soulmate by then. Oh, good for you if you did. But most people don't.
[00:25:20] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:25:21] Speaker C: The median marriage age now is close to 30.
So there's a lot of being alone in your 20s. And social media is a balm for that. You know, you can connect with all these people you care about, but it also means it fans your anxieties because, you know, you're connecting with your good high school friend and you give each other support and encouragement. But now your. Your high school friend has found this great job and they're really excited about it, or they just moved to the big city and they found this great apartment. They're really excited about the neighborhood they're living in, or they found this great person they're so excited about. Oh, my soulmate, you know, and you.
Darn. I'm.
[00:26:13] Speaker B: I don't have any of that. I'm behind.
[00:26:16] Speaker C: I'm still in the same.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:18] Speaker C: I don't know. I can't even find a job. You know, there's. Naturally, there's that kind of social comparison that goes on, and that's just part of life.
I mean, you can blame social media for it, and maybe social media is partly to blame because it does connect us, but it's just part of life. It's always been part of life. We compare ourselves to others. That's one of the things we do as humans.
[00:26:42] Speaker B: Do you think it really is such a thing to be behind in your 20s? Do you think that's real?
[00:26:50] Speaker C: I think it's real to feel your behind, yeah.
And I think that's what we're mostly talking about. That's what most people are feeling again, we've moved the goalposts a lot since.
[00:27:05] Speaker B: That's a good way to put it. You're right.
[00:27:08] Speaker C: Decades ago. You know, we expect people to make this really good life for themselves and we say to them, well, you know, you have all these great opportunities, so go do it.
And, and again, that's a great thing, all these opportunities. But it's hard.
It's hard. And so people naturally compare themselves to people who are doing well and say, gosh, I wish that was happening to me. But they may also compare themselves to their parents or grandparents. And their parents and grandparents may be whispering that in their ears too. When I was your age. Right. Well, want to one of grown ups favorite phrases when I was your age.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: Oh, I would never say that. They would look at me like I had crabs coming out of my ears. Yeah.
[00:28:00] Speaker C: You know, just I can say to my kids, when I was your age, I was a real knucklehead. I'm so glad you're smarter than I am.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: Yes. That's what you really.
[00:28:10] Speaker C: My kids, you know, they're, they're amazingly mature compared to me at 26. But often parents will say, when I was your age, you know, I was actually, I owned a house and you know, I had stable job, had for several years. And when are you gonna do that?
You really should avoid doing that.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: Yes. It just makes you feel worse.
[00:28:34] Speaker C: It makes you feel worse. But you just have to, you have to live your life. It's not anybody else's life that is going to be lived here. And the choices you make are not going to be anybody else's choices, you
[00:28:49] Speaker B: know, but, you know, why do we feel like by a certain age we should have a career or we should have relationships or we should be rich or have more money or, you know, have an identity that's completely figured out?
[00:29:05] Speaker C: Well, because everybody's telling us that. Yeah, yeah. You know what I found, bj in hundreds of interviews is that the wide open possibilities of emerging adulthood are really exciting in your early 20s.
Because, you know, you can stop and start a bunch of times and there's still time to get on track.
And, you know, each one may be exciting, you may learn from each one. But by their late 20s, increasingly people are feeling, well, you know, I want something to build a life on. I want something, something I can hold on to.
And so I think that's when they start to really feel more pressure from others, but also from themselves. They just get tired. I mean, they get tired of changing where they live. They get tired of changing jobs. They did get tired of changing love partners. You want something to hold on to.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And something more permanent.
[00:30:09] Speaker C: Yeah. The, the, the wide range of possibilities isn't as exciting as it was. And now they, they're really striving for something that is more enduring.
[00:30:22] Speaker B: Well, and I think you, you said it just a minute ago, the older they get then the more pressure there is that, you know, the closer you get to a certain age in your head.
[00:30:31] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:32] Speaker B: The more pressure you have. Hey, let's take our next break and when we come back, I've got several email questions if you're willing to, to take some spontaneity.
[00:30:40] Speaker C: You bet.
[00:30:41] Speaker B: Let's go in a different direction. Okay. We'll be right back. You're listening to brain matters on 90.7, the Capstone email address.
Hey, you're listening to brain matters on 90.7, the capstone. I'm BJ Gunther. We're talking tonight about the anxiety of adulting. But before we get back to our show, I want to mention that if you have any topics for the upcoming shows in the spring, the spring semester is what I really need some help with, some ideas for topics regarding college mental health.
Email those to me@brain mattersradiovuafm.com We've changed our email address, so I'll be happy to entertain those topic ideas. My guest is Dr. Jeffrey Arnett, who has studied this topic, emerging adulthood, for over 30 years. He's a psychologist. Clark University is located in Worcester, Massachusetts. Worcester, Massachusetts. What's the weather like up there right now?
[00:31:39] Speaker C: Miserable.
Is it cold and rainy? We've had some beautiful fall days, but today is not one of them.
[00:31:45] Speaker B: We just go from cremation hot to cold.
You want to talk about miserable? You've got 100 degree temperature on the way on the way to lunch today it was 88. And the humidity, it's getting a little bit better. But I'm ready for.
[00:32:05] Speaker C: How did anybody live down there before air conditioning is what I want to know?
[00:32:08] Speaker B: I don't know. It must have been miserable. Painful?
I don't know. But there's plenty of people who survived.
But it's been, it's been brutal. I'm ready for fall. I'm ready for the first frost.
Let's go to some email questions. This is regarding the anxiety, but what are the most, we may have touched on this. What are the most common adulting tasks that create anxiety? I think, or was it those three things you mentioned? Would you say that was the most common?
[00:32:44] Speaker C: No, I think I would Say, finding stable, rewarding work is probably number one for most people because that is the foundation of adult life, Life, a big part of it.
And it's hard to find.
It's hard to find.
And we often get some kind of education or training that either we can't find a job in it or we decide we don't want to do that after all.
So I think that caused a lot of anxiety. You get a job and you're saying to yourself, is this good enough and is this what I really want? And if the answer is no, then the question is, well, then, what now?
[00:33:34] Speaker B: Yeah, what do I do?
[00:33:36] Speaker C: Yeah, so there's a lot of anxiety. Is this good enough and do I really want this? But also about, well, if I don't want this, what do I want? What else can I find? What do I do? Am I going to get more education? Am I going to move somewhere else?
Am I going to try to find something else in this field that might be more rewarding? I think that's number one. And then number two is, where's my soulmate? I mean, I'm ready and he or she hasn't come along yet. Come on, what do I need to do? Yeah, I think that's the other thing. You know, as I was saying, you get in your early 20s, can be fun to date. Different people have that kind of fun.
And none of it's very serious really for most people. But you get to your late 20s and you're thinking, darn, if you don't have somebody, you're thinking, where's my person?
Am I going to find a person?
[00:34:41] Speaker B: Well, and some people internalize it and say there's something wrong with me.
[00:34:46] Speaker C: They do.
And BJ A lot of this has to do with the fact we ask so much out of life now.
[00:34:53] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:34:54] Speaker C: Ask a lot out of work.
We ask so much more than our grandparents, our great grandparents asked.
[00:35:02] Speaker B: It's too much.
[00:35:03] Speaker C: Mostly just had to go to work. And they didn't expect work to be fun and work wasn't fun.
You know, it was a fun economy. It was a manufacturing economy, construction and manual labor economy. None of that was fun.
But they didn't expect to, you know, it was mostly men who were working and they needed to find a job where they could support the wife and the babies who were coming along.
And so it was a different understanding of work. Now we expect work to be personally rewarding.
[00:35:40] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:35:41] Speaker C: And that's a wonderful revolution. You know, mostly work is not manufacturing, it's not farming, it's not picking up larger objects and taking them to some other place. It's all these things that involve your cognitive abilities, your thinking, the way you think and the way you process information and the way you write about what you're thinking about and how that matches what other people are writing in this company that you're part of or in this project that you're part of.
And so all that is much more interesting than it used to be.
But it's still a lot to ask out of work that is going to be personally rewarding. There still aren't that many jobs, honestly, that are personally rewarding.
[00:36:31] Speaker B: No. And what happens is upperclassmen. When I see some upperclassmen, juniors and seniors, a lot of times they're wanting to have that kind of aha moment of this is my passion.
And they haven't felt that yet. So they're starting to panic a little bit. And their fear, I've had several tell me, you know, their fear is becoming, like, settled.
That is their biggest fear. And we talk about, like, well, are your parents happy in their position? You know, and sometimes they. They see people around them that are not very happy in their jobs, and they thought they would be happier in what they choose to, you know, their career path, and they're kind of shocked that they're not feeling that.
[00:37:19] Speaker C: Right. So it's a lot to ask out of work, and it's still not that common to find it, even though we have more opportunity to find it than people in the parent.
[00:37:31] Speaker B: Right.
[00:37:31] Speaker C: It's the same way with love.
It used to be you just got married. You know, think of your grandparents. Were they looking for their soulmate? Probably not just needed a man needed to find a woman, and a woman needed to find a man. Because sexual gender roles, many songs have
[00:37:51] Speaker B: been written about it. Yeah.
[00:37:52] Speaker C: A man needed to find a woman to do the things that woman did, and a woman need to find a man to do the things that. That men did and formed a household and they had kids. And if you also like that person, that was a bonus.
And now we're looking for a soulmate. And just as for work, a soulmate is a lot to ask God to love. I mean, if you find it, gosh, you're blessed. And I'm blessed. I've been with my wife for almost 40 years.
It's a wonderful thing if you find it, but it's a lot to ask. God, love.
[00:38:29] Speaker B: It's a lot to ask. And you better always tell me, these kids, you better be a good picker.
[00:38:34] Speaker C: 36, looking all that Time I met my wife when I was 31, but, you know, you just wanted to make sure. 31, man, am I ever gonna find somebody? Yeah. And so it's an awful lot to ask God of love. And it puts a great. A great burden on yourself to. To be striving after that. And it puts a great burden on a relationship honestly to hold to that ideal again. Wonderful. If you find it. And it's great. We have that opportunity now, too, to look for our soulmate. But it doesn't come with any guarantee. Quite the contrary. I think our expectations are so high for both work and love that we often have to modify expectations. You know, we have to eventually just find a job we hope we can tolerate and maybe get some satisfaction of. And you eventually have to meet, have to find and marry a human being.
[00:39:38] Speaker B: That's how you learn. Yeah.
[00:39:40] Speaker C: Warts and all, flaws and all. You know, everybody has their imperfections, and everybody has to marry somebody with imperfections because that's.
[00:39:52] Speaker B: Nobody's perfect.
What about. Okay, this is another question, and this is interest. This is an interesting question. Is the approach of exposure therapy helpful with this type of anxiety?
[00:40:06] Speaker C: You know, you're the clinician here.
[00:40:08] Speaker B: I think so.
[00:40:09] Speaker C: I'm a developmental psychologist.
[00:40:12] Speaker B: I mean, how it's. Exposure therapy is basically what you just mentioned.
[00:40:16] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:40:17] Speaker B: Don't you think you're just going to have to take a job? You're just going to have to.
[00:40:22] Speaker C: Trial and error is what we're talking about.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: That's basically. That's basically it.
[00:40:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:29] Speaker B: When we come back, we're going to take our last break, I think now, but when we come back, we've talked about the pressure to succeed, but let's talk a little bit more about the relationship and adulthood and also some closing. I've got some closing questions for you, too. So when we come back, we're still talking about emerging adulthood and the anxiety around adulting. I've seen T shirts, even with, you know, something in the. That alludes to not adulting today. I don't know if you've seen that, but I've seen. I've seen them wearing that. I'm like, well, you're gonna have to adult someday eventually.
[00:41:07] Speaker C: So, you know, you have to someday
[00:41:09] Speaker B: join the rest of us.
We'll be right back. You're listening to brain matters on 93.2.7. The capstone.
[00:41:24] Speaker C: Wvuafm Tuscaloosa.
[00:41:27] Speaker A: This show is not a substitute for professional counseling, and no relationship is created between the show hosts or guests and any listener. If you Feel you are in need of professional mental health and are a UA student, we encourage you to contact the UA Counsel Counseling center at 348-3863. If you are not a UA student, please contact your respective counties crisis service hotline or their local mental health agency or insurance company. If it is an emergency situation, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
[00:42:04] Speaker B: Hey, you're back listening to brain matters on 90.7, the capstone. I'm Dr. B.J. guenther. We're talking about the anxiety of adulting. My guest is Dr. Jeffrey Arnett. He is a professor. And this. What's your official title at Clark University? Senior Research.
[00:42:21] Speaker C: Senior research scholar and author.
And author of Emerging Adulthood, the Winding Road from the Late teens through the 20s.
[00:42:30] Speaker B: Yes. When was that book written?
[00:42:33] Speaker C: You know, the third edition just came out in 2024.
[00:42:37] Speaker B: Yeah. I was going to ask you if
[00:42:38] Speaker C: there are more editions popular enough. So there been three editions since the first one in 2004.
[00:42:44] Speaker B: Wow. And the most recent book, your most recent book is. What's the title?
[00:42:49] Speaker C: The most recent book is Imaginary Realities. The Psychology of Everyday Delusions.
[00:42:55] Speaker B: What's that about?
[00:42:57] Speaker C: That's totally different. Well, it's about all the nutty things we do as humans and all the crazy things we believe. I mean, that's fascinating me about people since I first became interested in psychology. How we don't just take the world as we find it. We construct a world we like better. Yes, and that's a wonderful quality, but it's also a dangerous quality.
Sometimes we invent ideologies that cause us to do harmful things to ourselves and others.
You know, it's mostly good. Mostly.
It's comforting to us to create a version of the world.
[00:43:37] Speaker B: It's like a protective factor.
[00:43:39] Speaker C: Exactly.
It's comforting to believe that you understand the way things are and why things are and who's in control of the way things are.
[00:43:51] Speaker B: Are you working on any new books?
[00:43:55] Speaker C: No, but actually I'm thinking a lot today about the psychology of low fertility. Why has fertility dropped so much all over the world? Fascinating.
[00:44:06] Speaker B: It's the steroids in the chicken.
I know it is.
I know it. I'm 5:2, and I see a lot of women, young ladies, I'll say, young women who are tall and it's the steroids in the chicken. I know.
[00:44:23] Speaker C: That's what. That's an explanation I haven't heard yet. B.J. i'll put that on the list.
[00:44:28] Speaker B: When does.
When does uncertainty become unhealthy? Anxiety.
You know, I Guess I'll just leave it at that.
[00:44:38] Speaker C: I think it becomes unhealthy when you find yourself unable to organize your energies and make choices and strive toward those
[00:44:50] Speaker B: choices and move forward.
[00:44:52] Speaker C: Anxiety by itself is not a bad thing. I know it's not fun, but anxiety is a motivator.
[00:44:59] Speaker B: You know that's right.
[00:45:00] Speaker C: 24. And you don't like your job. You don't have a romantic partner.
Well, if you don't have any anxiety about that, why would you change?
But if you're anxious about it, thinking to yourself, man, this is not enough.
I want a good life. I want to find somebody. I want to find a job that I look forward to going to in the morning. Yes, that's a motivator. Then you're good. You're not just going to stick with that crummy job you have, and you're not just going to come home at night and.
And watch a screen and be by yourself.
You're gonna find ways to meet people and you're gonna get out and you're gonna ask about different jobs you can get or more education you can get or something. Anxiety is your friend to a certain point.
[00:45:56] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:45:57] Speaker C: Unless it becomes overwhelming and you just become demotivated because you feel like nothing good is going to happen for you. But that's really rare. Mostly in emerging adulthood. Anxiety is your friend.
[00:46:11] Speaker B: It gets things rolling. It really does.
It gets things. If you.
Are we asking the wrong question, though? Are we? You know, instead of saying, when am I finally going to become an adult, should we be asking something else?
[00:46:26] Speaker C: I think the question we should ask in our 20s is what kind of life do I want and how can I take steps to get there?
If you're not satisfied with your job, well, what kind of occupation would you like?
And once you decide that, what steps can you take to get there? And the hard truth is, bj, sometimes you have to say to yourself, sometimes you have to admit, well, what I'd really like is X.
But I'm not going to get X.
I don't have the ability to get X. I tried to get X.
[00:47:08] Speaker B: You're right. Yes.
[00:47:09] Speaker C: Was out of my reach.
So then what about Y?
There's not just one thing for us, bj, you know, most people, they can find a variety of ways to have a.
[00:47:22] Speaker B: Satisfaction. Yes. Multiple talents.
[00:47:24] Speaker C: So you can't get X. Well, what about why?
How about why? Okay, well, maybe Y is open. What steps could I take to get to why?
In the same way, with partners, you know, you may have someone you met and you thought, this person is great. I really want a life with this person. And it turns out they don't feel the same way. That happens to almost all of us at some point. And it's usually during the 20s that that happens. So if that happens, you say to yourself, well, okay, that's not going to work for me. My heart's broken.
But there are 8 billion people on this planet. There is somebody for you.
And so get out there.
Get on the apps. I know the apps are a nightmare, but a lot of people do find partners.
[00:48:15] Speaker B: Some of them still use it. I don't hear it as much, but some of them still. Still use the dating apps, you know?
[00:48:20] Speaker C: Absolutely. And I know a lot of emerging adults who have found their partner that way.
[00:48:24] Speaker B: Me, too.
[00:48:25] Speaker C: A lot of frogs on the way, but there may be a frog for you who is going to turn out to be your soulmate. So get out there and, you know, hang out with your friends, meet their friends. And, and yeah, it's. It's. It's. There's a lot of picking yourself up and dusting yourself off.
[00:48:45] Speaker B: Often it is.
[00:48:46] Speaker C: Try it again. But that's how you get to something like the life that you really want.
[00:48:54] Speaker B: You have to be flexible, adaptable, and sometimes you have to learn to do that.
You do. Okay, finish this sentence. This is last question.
You know you're becoming an adult. When.
[00:49:09] Speaker C: When you say, now I'm gonna.
[00:49:12] Speaker B: Oh, I didn't see that coming.
[00:49:14] Speaker C: That's the era we live in. It used to be defined by other people.
[00:49:18] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:49:19] Speaker C: It used to be fine. Defined other people by other people would say, okay, now you've turned 18, you're an adult now. You've graduated from college, you're an adult now. You've gotten married, you're an adult now. You've had a baby, you're an adult.
[00:49:34] Speaker B: What's next?
[00:49:34] Speaker C: Nobody gets to tell you anymore.
That's the freedom of the age we live in. We have that freedom that people have not had in the past. They can tell you all those things that you are not adult. And you can say, you know, I'm the one who decides that. And I'll tell you when I'm an adult. You don't get to tell me, in this era, we have the freedom to say, that's right.
Now an adult. That is what I decided was required for adulthood. Now I'm there.
Now I'm an adult.
[00:50:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Part. And part of what I do, part of my role here as a therapist at the counseling center is reminding students of that you know.
[00:50:19] Speaker C: Well, you say the the best question for last BJ it was a good
[00:50:23] Speaker B: this has been a fun show. I could talk about this for another hour. It's gone by fast. It was. It feels like every show that's so interesting goes by fast. Thank you for being on. I know you're busy. I know you're busy thinking up more books to write.
[00:50:39] Speaker C: Well, it's my pleasure. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you.
[00:50:42] Speaker B: I appreciate it. Let me make a few announcements before we go. Our shows are recorded and podcasted on Apple, Spotify, Audioboom and@voices ua edu. Just type in Brain Matters and you'll find some of our past shows. There's also a link to Voices UA Edu on our Counseling Center's website at Counseling ua Edu I always like to thank a few people who made the show possible. He's Our executive director, Dr. Greg Vanderwaal, here at the Counseling center, my producer and my colleague Katherine Howell, and of course, my colleagues here at the Counseling Center, Gareth Garner, who edits our shows every week for us and the WBUA staff and of course, my guest tonight, Dr. Jeffrey Arnett. Don't forget, we're on next week for one of my favorite shows because Halloween is my favorite holiday and the topic is going to be how horror films reflect societal fears and cultural anxieties.
So come back and join us next week. It's going to be a fascinating show, just like this one was. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next week. Good night.
[00:51:53] Speaker A: This show was not intended as a substitute for professional counseling. Further, the views, opinions and conclusions expressed by the show hosts or their guests are their own and not necessarily those of the University of Alabama, its officers or trustees. Any views, opinions or conclusions shared on the show do not create a relationship between the host or any guest and any listener, and such a relationship should never be inferred. If you feel you are in need of professional mental health and are a UA student, please contact the UA Counseling center at 348-3863. If you are not a UA student, please contact your respective counties crisis service hotline or their local mental health agency or insurance company. If it is an emergency situation, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
