Rushing to Success: The Journey My Young Staff Are Missing

As this summer winds down, I’ve found myself spending a lot of time thinking about my staff. Many of them are high-achieving individuals, driven by the need to succeed, and I admire their ambition. This hasn’t changed—camp always attracts incredible people.  But they are changing.

In the past, and by past I mean more than three years ago, there would always be a number of people who came to camp and were so deeply impacted and inspired by their summer that they would change their major. They wanted to serve, they wanted to work with kids. Now, I have staff who are still deeply impacted by camp, and just as inspired by their summer. But now, they lament that they can’t come back next year because camp was just a single year on their plan. A box ticked.

I can’t shake this nagging feeling: are they sacrificing too much of themselves for an undefined idea of who they think they should be when they’re 45 years old. I’ve watched them balance a hard tiring job while simultaneously under pressure to get straight A’s, land the perfect internship, and ensure every step of their career journey is meticulously calculated and executed on. It’s as though they have a clear destination in mind and are making sure all the boxes to get there are checked. For them, there’s no room for mistakes, no space for exploration—just milestones to meet and standardized tests to pass. They’ve defined who they should be before they’ve even had the chance to discover who they are.

There’s a quote I’ve been pondering, one that I have to paraphrase and am unable to attribute to anyone, but it’s stayed with me: “The point of life is to become who you are after you have discovered what that is.” But how can you become that person if you haven’t yet taken the time to explore and discover?

I worry that in their relentless pursuit of success, my young staff are missing out on an important part of life. They are so focused on being the right person—the perfect student, the ideal candidate—that they are missing the journey of becoming. Life isn’t about hitting a set of pre-determined milestones; it’s about understanding yourself along the way. But when you’ve convinced yourself that every grade, every experience has to be flawless, the fear of making mistakes can block any real growth.

Many of my staff seem to think that their twenties are not for discovery, but for perfection. Get the grades, get the internship, secure the job—that’s the formula. But I see them tying themselves in knots to follow this path, terrified of anything that might look like failure. They seem to think that any misstep could cost them their future. The problem is, they’re so focused on the destination that they’re missing out on the richness of the journey.

This mindset feels like a symptom of a much larger issue in our culture today—the idea that you have to be perfect from the start. No time for mistakes, no time for self-reflection. But mistakes are part of the process. They’re how we learn, how we grow, and, more importantly, how we discover who we really are.

I think back to ancient wisdom—Socrates’ call to "know thyself," and Aristotle’s belief that true happiness comes from living in harmony with who we are. These ideas aren’t just philosophical musings; they are the foundation of a meaningful life. Without self-awareness, success can feel hollow. Without making mistakes, how do we figure out what works for us and what doesn’t?

So, here’s my message to my staff, and to anyone else feeling the pressure to be perfect: slow down. You’ve got plenty of time to become who you are. Don’t be so focused on getting the perfect grades, the perfect job, or following the perfect path that you miss out on the real point of life—to discover yourself, to learn from your experiences, and to grow into the person you’re meant to be.

The twenties are a time to explore, to make mistakes, to take risks, and to reflect. Every experience, every failure, every unexpected twist is part of the journey. It’s okay to not have it all figured out yet. It’s okay to change your mind. In fact, it’s necessary. Without taking the time to know yourself, the success you achieve might feel empty, no matter how prestigious or well-paying the career.

Yet I can’t help but reflect on how different my own twenties were. I got to make my mistakes, explore different paths, and figure out who I was in relative privacy. I had the freedom to take risks, stumble, and change direction without every misstep being documented for the world to see. But today’s young people don’t have that luxury. Their lives are constantly recorded, shared, and made permanent online through social media. Every choice, every mistake, no matter how small, can feel like it has lifelong consequences because it’s out there for everyone to witness. They don’t get to experiment and learn behind closed doors—they’re doing it in front of an audience, and I imagine that adds an enormous amount of pressure. This amplifies their fear of making mistakes, because now the stakes seem even higher. Every misstep can feel permanent, an indelible mark on their future, and that pressure can rob them of the freedom to truly explore who they are.

The point of life really is to become who you are after you’ve discovered what that is. You can’t skip that discovery phase. So, take the pressure off. Enjoy the process. Learn from your experiences and from the mistakes you make along the way. There will be plenty of time to achieve great things, but the greatest achievement of all is knowing who you are—and that only comes from embracing the journey.