Growing up, I looked to forward to my twenties with blind, stupid optimism. As a faithless teenager I imagined myself dancing through them fueled by sex, partying, success and self-esteem that would make every man I met green with envy. Instead, they fell upon me with the startling snap of a surprise party filled with a dangerously high volume of lead balloons; one brightly colored symbol of maturity after another left me dizzy, spinning and broken. 

I spent the first half of my twenties trying to build a life in three different states. During these travels I tried my hand at four careers while trying to integrate the various personalities warring within me into anything that remotely resembled a man. I had never been more wild, reckless, confused, scared or sad in my life. Before long, paralysis set in and I limped home to my parents. 

I had a supportive middle class family behind me and with their resources and my prior education I had a multitude of options before me, but considering each possibility just tightened the grip of my paralysis. I was as terrified of commitment as I was of aimless wandering.

"What if I choose the wrong career and am stuck in a job I hate for life? What if my life isn't interesting enough to write a book about like the rest of people that our culture admires? What if I fall on my face in failure? What if I…?"

It turns out I'm not alone in my transitional paralysis. Some people believe that these issues have even become acute in the current generation. My writhing is a marquee example of what sociologists are referring to as "emerging adulthood."

The average American twenty-something has more financial resources and more career options than their counterparts in previous generations. These options are set within a cultural context that is continually in flux and tends to devalue long term employment and faith commitments that bind people to particular communities with particular social constraints. 

Sociologists attribute this to the fact that most young adults are staying in college longer as specialized degrees have become more important. This leads to pushing off marriage and having children until much later than in past generations. The average time employees stay with a given job before needing more training or moving on completely is two years. This creates a tendency to avoid commitments as young adults may need to change locations as often as their jobs change title and loci. All of this puts pressure on a maturing adult to be primarily concerned about #1. 

In his book Souls in Transition, Christian Smith (sociologist at the University of Notre Dame and director of its Center for the Study of Religion and Society) discusses how the nuances of our contemporary culture leave young adults hesitant to commit to religion, marriage or other choices that may restrict their freedom to romp through their twenties, while at the same time, reeling with lack of purpose. The startling thing about it, as far as I can see, is that the very thing that "emerging adults" tend to be terrified of is also the only cure for our twenty-something tizzies: Faith.

This has certainly been the case in my life. It was faith and a commitment to a religious community that delivered me from my fears. I don't think this prescription is myopic or purely subjective. I think it makes simple sense of a complicated problem. The real reason that so many of us become too paralyzed to live life in our twenties is because it is the first time that we have to decide what (or whom) our lives are to be lived for. It is answering this question with a triumphant "ME" that traps so many of us between our egos and our loneliness.

I remember learning this lesson in a powerful way while attending the New York Conservatory for the Dramatic Arts in New York City. I was part of a two-year program that consisted of 160 students. At the end of the first year nearly 50 percent of the class was to be sent home. In other words, our finals were also our auditions for the second year of the program. Talk about performance anxiety. 

In one of our classes we were given a piece of poetry to memorize and a list of some basic things that our instructor might be looking for. To the dismay of the whole class, we were not given any further instructions.

On the day of the final, I nervously stepped into the room after my name was called. The door closed behind me and as my eyes adjusted to the dimly lit room I stepped up to a mark in its center. My professor was perched behind a desk in front of a box marked out on the floor with tape. It ran the length and width of the room. He stared for a moment-smiled softly and said "go." 

I had complete freedom to bring to life every artistic discovery that I had made throughout the year. I was free to dress that little poem up however I wished-to drape each syllable in any shade of any color I desired-but all I could think about was MY failure, MY grade, MY embarrassment, MY invitation to the second year, what seemed to me the risking of MY whole little life right there in that room. I proceeded to nervously and choppily spit out broken syllables in a gray colorless tone with a nervously rigid stillness in my body. I choked. 

I waited outside and when my professor finished the last exam for the day, he left the room and faced my pained expression. He told me that it was important for me to realize that there was something worse than failure: holding back. Of course, he was concerned about preparing me for auditions, but I think it applies to so much more. 

I had forgotten the reason that I was in that room.I forgot about the craft of acting. The beauty of swimming in it. I was not there to get a grade-I was there to learn-to discover something beautiful. To learn how to give others permission to feel the emotions that they fear as they watch me act in joyful and liberated honesty. I wasn't supposed to be worrying about what I could get out of it; rather, how I could discover a deeper life through learning how to give myself to it.

Faith and church help us to remember what we are here for. To learn how to give so much of ourselves to living with and loving others that we discover what fearfully and wonderfully made creations we are. I don't mean to oversimplify the very complicated reality that is "emerging adulthood," but in so many ways it sounds like good ole fashioned nearsighted selfishness. Avoiding commitment-avoiding faith-worrying about failure-focusing on our little worlds-all of these things will leave us lying on our deathbeds wondering-regretting the ways that we held back. After all, didn't Jesus say something about how in fitfully trying to find our lives-we may just find that we've lost it completely.

A small adjustment just might go a long way in carrying our faith through "emerging adulthood." Commit to your church community. Stop asking what it does for you and begin to do for it. The difficult thing about following a crucified Messiah is that we can't begin to be like him if we don't have a people for whom we can lay down our lives. Each day you visit that local, little community make an effort to find a need to fill-to find a person that does not look like you or isn't the same age as you and spend real time talking with them. You may just find that these small, simple steps are the beginning of a beautiful adventure colored with passion, liberation and redemption.

Some of us may want to do amazing spiritual things and that is great-but remember that Paul said spiritual power and individual displays of greatness mean nothing if our hearts are void of love. We need to embrace the family that God has created for us and plant our roots deep in the ground-building strong foundations on the solid immovable rock of Christ and learn the ways of a man that held nothing back from God or His creation.