Iheoma Amadi: What Does It Feel Like to Navigate Life as an 18-Year-Old?

Growing up, I was advised that being good at school equals successful living. My family said I was going to be a lawyer, and I agreed, as long as it made them happy and proud of me. Without complaining, I started working towards it. It was easy for a while: reading, studying, graduating from secondary school and preparing for every exam to make the dream possible.

Until it was time for admissions.

I studied hard and had good grades. So I wasn’t worried about admission. “I am going to the university this year,” I was sure. But maybe I should have been worried, because the good grades weren’t enough for admission. I couldn’t describe what was more painful: staying home for another whole year or the fact that I didn’t get admission. At the time, I was prepared to leave home. University had become or represented something bigger: freedom, independence, and, even more importantly, discovering a world outside the one I’d always known.

I accepted my fate and decided to sit for another exam for another round of admission. Since good grades weren’t enough in the previous year, I thought then maybe higher grades would make it easier for me to get away. And it was going well. I was hopeful for admission.

Then my mom died, a day before she was supposed to accompany me for my exam.

That’s how uncertain life can be. It hurt. It hurt a lot, and even more because we were finally getting closer to each other. Days after her death, I became regretful of all the times we spent arguing instead of bonding, all the things that could have happened differently. All the things I wish I had done differently.

For a while, everything I thought was important suddenly felt insignificant. The exams, the scores, the admission, the course I was supposed to study—all of it seemed so far away. I had spent so much time worrying about what my future would look like, only to be reminded that life doesn’t always go as we’ve imagined or give us enough time to get wherever we hope to be. At that point, I stopped thinking about school.

My family still wanted me to pursue a career in law, and even though I no longer had the strength to apply for admission, I made the effort. Admissions began arriving, but I still wasn’t accepted to study Law. Eventually, I had to choose a different course. My family was okay with my decision, but they still hoped I would switch back to law in my second year. However, during that year, I gained the clarity I needed: I never wanted to be a lawyer. In fact, I was not sure what I wanted to be at all.

And that realisation scared me because, for the first time, I had to separate what I wanted from what everyone else had always wanted for me. For so long, I had measured success by wanting to make my family proud. I never really stopped to ask myself what would make me proud and happy. So if I won’t become a lawyer, then what would I become? If I don’t know what I want, am I already falling behind?

These were questions I couldn’t find answers to. But it still felt like everyone expected me to have one.

I’m 18 now, but life is not certain. In just two years, I’ll be 20, and it’s scary to think about not having my life figured out by then. There is this pressure to know what you’re doing, to have a plan, to be moving towards something. And sometimes, when you look around and see people who seem so certain about their futures, it’s easy to wonder if you’re doing something wrong.

Are young people supposed to have everything figured out? Shouldn’t we be allowed to grow to figure everything out ourselves? I know it’s normal for our interests and priorities to change—even the world changes. Sometimes, something we desperately want at 15 doesn’t make sense at 18. Navigating life as a teenager is stressful, and it can be even more overwhelming. A whole lot can happen in a year. It seems like one moment you’re planning your future, and everything is going well, but it only takes a day, or even less, for everything to change.

I believe I might not know what I’m doing yet, but I’m going to learn to be easier on myself. And instead of always thinking I’m behind or measuring success based on external factors, I will try to figure out how to become a better version of myself I haven’t met yet.

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Iheoma Amadi is a writer and storyteller passionate about creating engaging, thoughtful, and relatable content. She enjoys exploring ideas through creative writing, articles, digital content, and storytelling, with a particular interest in writing that connects with readers and sparks meaningful conversations. She is continuously developing her voice and experience through personal projects, writing samples, and creative work. She can be reached on Instagram via ihe._.oma.

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