An Ordinary Age

Joanne McHugh
May 23, 2024
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Book of the Month: An Ordinary Age by Rainesford Stauffer
Front cover of the book An Ordinary Age
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An introduction

In An Ordinary Age, journalist Rainesford Stauffer explores the pressure to know what your ‘best life’ entails and how to create it in young adulthood.

Stauffer notes that it’s implied everywhere and sometimes said explicitly by well-meaning parents and mentors to 20-somethings–These are the best years of your life. 

“If you’re a young adult today, it’s a challenge not to feel as though finding yourself has been turned into a competitive sport. Now, it seems, striving to be extraordinary, being exceptional, and being special are the same as being capable, being fulfilled, and being happy,” said Rainesford Stauffer.

According to Stuaffer, the pressures on young adults today can include saving a certain amount of money by a certain age, making memories before the moment has even passed, knowing what you’re good at and going after it, having the right kind of social life so you never feel lonely, and proceeding with total confidence that whatever you’re doing is the best thing you could be doing.

“Young adults are coming of age in a society that’s quick to tell them what they ought to be, with little attention paid to the fact that, often, what’s significant is small, and what shapes us is the everyday, not always the grand adventure or accomplishment. That’s why the everyday circumstances in which we build our lives and selves matter so much,” said Rainesford Stauffer.

Stauffer hopes An Ordinary Age “gets us talking about how many of our ordinary moments and feelings are actually formative. Being contented, present, and learning as we go should move us closer to the kind of lives and world we actually want to wake up to.”

The pressure is on

Stauffer noticed that while young adults are told that they can be anything, sometimes it feels like so much effort is spent living up to the ideal of the person you could be that the person you become is an afterthought.  Stauffer notes, “This pressure to know what your ‘best life’ entails, and how to create it in young adulthood, felt worthy of a closer look to see where it stems from, how it shapes young people, and what systems and power structures enable it.”

Rainesford Stauffer says, “When all the pressure is on to have the time of your life during one time of life, it could make the bad things feels worse, and the good feel fleeting…there’s a case to be made for a more nuanced conversation around young adulthood–one less about our best selves, and more about what it means to create who we are.”
According to Stauffer, “As I moved through my early 20s into my mid-to-late-20s, I found myself yearning for simple things that rarely made the list of dream jobs, big moves, and adventures that have been marketed as cornerstones of young adulthood.”

Stauffer says she, “thought about the steadiness of a partner and community when I was supposed to feel confident and proud to go it alone. A sense of self that wasn’t tethered to what I achieved or who I pleased. Framed photos of people I love in a home and a dresser in my bedroom, signs of staying instead of looking toward the horizon of the next new place.”

Stauffer wondered why there is this pressure to have your life fully figured out by the time you make it to your mid-twenties. She wondered, “Why the averageness of coming of age wasn’t talked about as much as achieving your wildest dreams.” Thus she set out to explore these themes in An Ordinary Age.

The world of work

When she examines the world of work, Stauffer notes how pursuing a ‘better’ job is a hallmark of today’s working world, with the idea that we will always be moving up in whatever we do, and if we don’t, we’re doing it wrong. Stauffer wonders, “I think about it at least once a week: how unnerving is it that so much of my identity is tethered to something I could be fired from, and how, the deeper into adulthood I get, the more I side-eye how much of my only self-perception is intertwined with work.”

Author Rainesford Stauffer wonders, “How do I define myself beyond what I do, and the security I chase? What’s so wrong with finding your meaning, and even your dream, outside the scope of what you achieve and earn?”

Stauffer laments, “It feels like a lot of what we tell young adults about work are opposites: This is the time to experiment, chase your dreams, and prove yourself, but on the other hand, you need to be practical, prepared to do anything, and certainly shouldn’t expect anything from work.”

Stauffer provides readers with plenty to chew on.

Rainesford Stauffer wonders, “If you haven’t pursued your passion as a career, are you really making the most of your time on earth? But on the flip side, don’t you know there’s more to life than work and you should be grateful to have a job at all?"

On perfectionism

Stauffer notes that, “Young adulthood was once presented as time blocked off for making mistakes and being imperfect, because how else were you supposed to know you were trying things and experimenting and putting yourself out there in a meaningful way?”

Stauffer notes how this mindset has changed for the worse: “For today’s emerging adults trying to craft a stable, fulfilling life, caution and precision and perfection feel like the qualities closest to a guarantee that you won’t fall short of the standards you set.”

According to Rainseford Stauffer, “Perfectionism increased between 1989 and 2016. Self-oriented perfectionism, when you hold unrealistic expectations for yourself, increased by about 10%. Socially prescribed perfectionism, when you believe you have to be perfect to gain approval and acceptance from others, jumped by an estimated 32%.
“Other-oriented perfectionism, when you impose unrealistic standards on others, went up about 16%. What these numbers tell us is that, first, it isn’t just you, and in some cases, it’s a structural issue that has specific ramifications on our well-being,” said Rainesford Stauffer.

Stauffer laments, “We want to be loved as a whole person; we want to be secure as a whole person. And increasingly, it feels like that wholeness means deleting any of the flaws or missteps, as if it’s as simple as dragging an eraser across them, rubbing them out of the story we tell about ourselves.”  

According to Stauffer, “It’s trying to put out a million little fires at the same time: How do you outrun your most ordinary self? How are we actually supposed to embrace ourselves as we are? How do we let it go?”

Loneliness

”Yet, somehow, a state of being that exists in all age groups, that pops up whether you have 20 friends or 2, that can find you even when you’re surrounded by people, feel disorienting, like a betrayal of what young adulthood is supposed to be, according to some: toggling between circles of friends and blissful independence,” said Rainesford Stauffer.
…”At times, it even feels like loneliness is a side effect of wanting other people in your life in the first place. Maybe that’s what is so rattling: The realization that we want other people is a risky proposition,” said Rainesford Stauffer.

Online in real life

According to Rainesford Stauffer, “Nearly everyone I spoke to about social media expressed a desire to be ‘authentic’ and ‘real,’ which runs counter to the idea that young adults want their online selves and feeds to function like a highlight reel. Figuring out what that looks like in context is more challenging.”
“We start to feel a different kind of pressure: the ability to be open and honest and genuine, but in a way that’s manageable and understandable enough to fit comfortably on grids and in character counts,” said Rainesford Stauffer.
“Now we don’t just have to worry about perfect pictures. The questions get deeper: How vulnerable can we be while still being protected? What kind of messiness makes us relatable instead of just a mess?” said Raineford Stauffer.

The ordinary is extraordinary

Rainesford Stauffer writes, “Over the past more-than-a-year, speaking to young adults from different locations, backgrounds, and circumstances about the pressures they’d internalized, the messages they’d taken to heart, and strain of living a ‘best life’ has distilled some of the growing pains and stressors and changing definitions of success into a simple lesson…”
According to Rainesford Stauffer, “Some of the most extraordinary things about our lives are, in fact, the ordinary ones. The person we met by chance that changes everything. The thing was said yes–or no!--to that rerouted the path. Knowing loneliness isn’t a character flaw, but a sign we aren’t in it alone.”
Rainesford Stauffer writes, “That craving acknowledgment, acceptance, belonging, and even wanting to be liked are normal, not betrayals to the great solo adventure of finding yourself. That failure is rarely final and is mostly someone else’s definition of failure anyway. That we become more of ourselves when we let the right people in. That we’re becoming more ourselves all the time.”