The 25-Year Expiration Date We All Fear (That Doesn’t Exist)
By Dorothy Vazquez
Graphic by Arlette Martinez
By 25, you are supposed to have your degree, a real job, your own place and some perfect sense of who you are. If you do not, it feels like you are behind. Five months ago, I turned 20, and honestly? The clock has been ticking.
It is like the moment you hit 20, there are only five short years to check off all the things you are “supposed” to achieve — earn your degree, find a career, gain independence, search for your identity. Most days blur together with classes, assignments and my part-time job. It is not just me — many young people in their early 20s feel like they are racing an invisible deadline, trying to meet milestones past generations held up as markers of “adulthood.”
I scroll through Instagram and see people my age landing job offers, announcing internships and getting engaged. It feels like a social media feed’s only job is to remind you that you are behind. The pressure does not stop there. Families, especially if you are a first-generation college student like me, carry their own expectations.
Coming from a Mexican family, success is not just about me; it is about proving that all the sacrifices my parents made were worth it. There is this unspoken responsibility to move faster and to achieve more and to set the example for younger siblings or cousins.
It turns out that pressure is not just in our heads. A 2024 report from Mental Health America found that 71% of Gen Z workers and 59% of Millennials reported poor work-health scores — the lowest among all generations. The report linked this stress to burnout and lack of support in workplaces that prioritize productivity over well-being.
“Most of us spend most of our waking hours in the workplace,” said Schroeder Stribling, president and CEO of Mental Health America. “Those environments and experiences can vary dramatically… reducing stress, promoting psychological safety, and creating open and supportive cultures impact all employees.”
For first-generation students like me, that pressure runs even deeper. It is not just “what do you want to do with your life?” It becomes, “how will you make all of this count for everyone who came before you?”
A February 2025 study published in the Journal of American College Health by researchers Dean M. Rockwell and Sasha Y. Kimel found that first-generation students often face what they call a “cultural mismatch” between home and college environments. The study explains that first-gen students are typically raised with values that emphasize community, family and fitting in, while universities reward individualism and standing out—a gap the researchers note “can be deleterious to mental health.”
Because the truth is, life does not play out as neatly as we all wish it would. Most of us are still piecing things together in ways that do not fit into that “checklist.” Some of my friends work late-night shifts in fast food or retail, then show up exhausted to class the next morning. Others spend hours on the freeway commuting because living near campus is too expensive. Plenty of us have switched majors, transferred schools or taken semesters off when money or mental health got in the way.
None of that makes us lazy or behind; it is just the reality of being in your 20s and trying to survive while still figuring out what you want. No Instagram highlight reel shows the burnout of mopping floors at 1 a.m. or crying in your car before an exam. That is the part nobody posts online — but it is the one most of us are living through.
Living through all of that, it is hard not to feel like you are behind. I have started to joke with my friends that I am having a midlife crisis at 20. I stress about careers and stability as if I am twice my age, even though I am still figuring out what I actually want. It is a weird mix of being excited to start my life but overwhelmed by how to get there. Underneath the joke is the same feeling so many of us carry — that we are running out of time.
Here is what I keep reminding myself: our 20s are not supposed to be perfect. They are supposed to be messy. This is the time to try things, screw up, backtrack, switch plans and learn as you go. Stability will come, but not on some invisible schedule, and definitely not because you rushed yourself into a life you do not even want.
Maybe the real point is not having everything figured out by 25; the point is realizing that you do not have to. The point is giving yourself permission to slow down, breathe, and most importantly to fail. It is okay to not have all the answers for a while.
If there is one thing I have learned so far, it is that being “behind” is not real. Everyone is moving in different directions at different speeds; there is no single “perfect” map we are all meant to follow. If joking about a midlife crisis at 20 has taught me anything, it is that I would rather spend this decade living it than chasing a deadline that was never real in the first place.
Live your life how you want to, and when you want to.