My Reality Check Bounced! - Jason Ryan Dorsey [6]
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ONLINE: Find out where Tiffany is now at www.myrealitycheckbounced.com/book
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2
BREAK FREE
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To see into the future all you have to do is close your eyes.
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REALITY-CHECK MOMENT—
I’M STILL LIVING AT MY PARENTS’ HOUSE!
Do you know any “boomerangers”? People your age who thought they knew what they wanted, moved away from home for work or school or a relationship, only to retreat a few months or years later to their childhood bedroom, living off their parents and feeling as if they’ve failed?
Join the club.
Again and again, I meet people who are so excited to get out of high school, college, or graduate school and start life with a bang, only to be greeted instead with a buzzkill. After trying their hand in the real world they’re frustrated, confused, and barely getting by. They dreamed they’d be free and independent, but now they’re negotiating curfews with Dad and car insurance with Mom. Even if they have managed to live on their own—if that’s what you call living with twelve roommates—they’re finding less fulfillment than they thought. Many of them lie awake at night wondering if they actually have what it takes to ever make it on their own. This is not the launch into adulthood they dreamed about.
Josh, twenty-seven, is a boomeranger who was able to break free of this frustrating spiral and never look back. In two years, he went from a confused college graduate crashing at his mom’s in Dallas to a rising corporate star living in his very own house in Atlanta. I was so curious about how he found his way that I bought him dinner to hear his story:
As a kid, I always thought I’d grow up to be a doctor like my parents. I took the premed path in college, but ultimately decided that wasn’t the career for me.
With no obvious career path, college graduation approaching, and my apartment lease ending, I made the safe choice and moved back home with my mom in Dallas. It was awkward sleeping in my old bedroom, but I felt like I had nowhere else to go.
One evening I was watching TV at home and noticed some old family photos on the wall. Looking at those pictures, I saw a big truth staring back at me. I was essentially in the same place where I had started four years before. This realization made me very uncomfortable, especially since I had always imagined myself climbing some prestigious corporate ladder. I never could have predicted I’d be living back home with my mom after college.
Both my parents immigrated to the United States from India in the late sixties for a chance to live the American dream. They started with nothing and worked hard to build successful careers. Their hard work paid off and afforded me the luxury to go to prep school, travel overseas, and attend an expensive liberal arts college. And what had I done with all their generosity and unwavering support? I was still eating my mom’s food, living under her roof, and depending on her to pay for gas in my car.
Looking at those old family photos I decided I’d spent too much time and effort to give up so easily and settle back where I started. I knew I had to somehow find out what I was supposed to do with my life. The only way to do this would be to step out of my comfortable “Mom safety net.” That would force me to stop hiding from the real world and start figuring out whatever I was supposed to do with my life. I had to leave my mom’s house, leave Dallas, leave my old friends, and move some place where I had no one to fall back on except myself.
My flash of courage was offset by one big hesitation. To make this jump, I’d have to find a new job in a new city where I knew no one. And I’d have to learn how to be okay on my own. From the warmth of my mom’s house, those were pretty chilling obstacles. But I just couldn’t see myself mooching off my mom another day—she’d already paid so much for my education and I felt guilty not using it.
By this time, I had already landed an entry-level job at a stock brokerage, so I showed up for work the next morning and told my boss I was moving