A stable identity does not come from sticking to one plan. It comes from being willing to change the plan. That is the single principle Joshua Estrin offered when I asked what a person in their 20s should hold onto in a culture that keeps telling them who to be.
Estrin is a clinical therapist and data scientist, and the author of Shut Up and Listen to Yourselves. His advice is simple. Make a plan for where you want to be at 30, 40, 50 and 60. Then, if it stops feeling right, change it.
Why a fixed plan can backfire
Estrin’s own path shows how this works. He started as an actor. He entered university planning to be a physician, then a corporate lawyer, mostly to make his parents happy. Neither happened. Around 40, he went back to school for seven years to study applied mathematics, a subject he said he had failed in high school. He now works in data science and artificial intelligence, writes books, and makes short videos.
He says all of those people are him. None of them is a mask. That fits how he talks about authenticity online. He acts differently on different platforms, and he considers each version honest. The harder question, he says, is when someone demands that the real you stand up, as if only one version counts.
Public identity adds pressure
We talked about how this is harder now. Young people can reject the old expectations about career, family and religion. They also build themselves in public, where strangers comment on every choice. Estrin pointed out that even an adult with years of therapy can find that crushing. A teenager has fewer tools.
He does not offer a simple fix. He suggests parents limit internet use for young children and treat the teen years as a chance to explore, with a real safety net in place.
He also separates critical thinking from self-criticism. Critical thinking takes time and helps you understand who you are. Self-criticism just tears you down. When you change your plan, the first kind of thinking is the one to use.
Estrin’s own rule is not to explain the change to anyone. You do not owe an audience a defense of each revision. As he put it, you have the chance to be so many versions of yourself, and he encourages people to enjoy them all.
Here is one thing to try. Write down your current plan for the next five years. Then ask yourself which part you hold only because someone else expects it. Change that part on paper first, and see how it feels.
From the episode: Finding Authenticity in a Hyper-Visible World with Dr. Joshua Estrin, with Joshua Estrin. Read the full transcript.