[00:00.09]Entering the New Room of Your Life
[00:07.72]It must be one of the most frequently asked questions
[00:12.77]in the English language—
[00:14.32]“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
[00:16.45]And for most of us the answer is simple—
[00:18.95]“I don't know.” And that's just fine.
[00:21.56]For teenagers all over the world it is difficult to imagine
[00:25.72]life outside the familiar school grounds
[00:28.28]and comfortable family home.
[00:29.89]But when the university entrance exams finish
[00:32.97]and high-school graduation wraps up,
[00:35.18]it is time to move on to a whole new stage
[00:38.18]in one's life—adulthood.
[00:40.25]One day when you are 40, you may look back on your life
[00:44.53]and wonder exactly how you became an adult.
[00:47.60]When did you change? Quite often the answer will lie
[00:52.10]between your first day of university
[00:54.15]and the first day of your professional career.
[00:56.45]While you cannot pinpoint an exact time,
[00:59.01]somewhere in the “roommate days” or “dorm days”
[01:02.87]you learnt things far more valuable than anything
[01:05.69]you could learn in a classroom.
[01:08.24]For it is in this time we learn independence-
[01:10.85]Mum and Dad can't take care of you anymore;
[01:14.06]responsibility—you have to clean your own bedroom
[01:17.91]and make your own meals; maturity—
[01:20.63]suddenly joking about “girl's germs” doesn't seem so funny
[01:24.87]when you actually have a girlfriend or boyfriend;
[01:27.55]respect—you should take care of John's computer,
[01:30.91]he spent a lot of money on it; and budgeting—
[01:33.82]should you spend your last $50 on new shoes or pizza?
[01:38.24]And a big part of the living-away-from-home process
[01:41.99]is communication. High-class celebrities and
[01:45.14]highly paid psychologists are always telling us,
[01:48.18]to fix our relationship problems,
[01:50.22]“the key is communication.”
[01:52.13]And nothing can provide better training in
[01:54.87]developing communication than living with other people.
[01:57.77]“Whose dirty socks are these?”
[01:59.82]“Where is your share of the rent money?”
[02:02.02]“Let's have a party on Friday night!”
[02:04.27]“I think I'm going to break-up with my boyfriend.”
[02:06.99]This special period of time is guaranteed to
[02:10.47]make you feel every emotion possible,
[02:12.75]but at the same time it will provide you
[02:15.90]with the best memories you could ever dream of.
[02:18.28]When the “dorm days” come to an end,
[02:20.92]we finally know where we belong in the world.
[02:23.66]And finally, we know exactly what we want to be when we grow up.
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