C/O Matthew Ball, Unsplash
How our thirties will be the new twenties
By: Ana Mamula, Contributor
I remember being a kid and daydreaming of what it would be like being able to drive, have my own place, have kids and attend university. From such a young age, I was envious of those older women who seemed so much more independent than I was.
I remember saying to myself, “In my early twenties, I will definitely be married and by my mid-twenties, I’ll definitely have kids. Three exactly.”
Looking back, I laugh to myself. I’m currently a twenty-year old full-time university student and I am no way in hell getting married or having kids soon. Life moved so much faster than I expected, leaving me envious of that little girl who had no troubles in the world. While she longed for her twenties, she never had to deal with the stress of work, school, relationships, paying taxes and so much more. It’s as if we progressed from being driven to school in the backseat of our parents’ cars to driving our own in the blink of an eye.
Despite life moving so fast, leaving us with less than seconds to breathe, it carries many substantial events that form who we are. However, I believe one decade in particular holds the most importance for us. Our twenties.
Our twenties truly capture everything about who we are and who we are going to be. It is during our twenties that the most life-changing events in our lives occur. The start of this decade is a transformational moment, what with coming out of one’s teen years in the beginning and ending as a fully grown adult. Our twenties are when we make those friends we carry with us for the rest of our lives. They’re when we could meet our significant other, when we could receive that job we have always wanted and when we buy our first home.
Our twenties truly capture everything about who we are and who we are going to be.
Due to all of these life-changing events that society tells us we have to go through in our twenties, the pressure is beyond difficult to carry. Individuals often consider graduating from university and achieving financial stability as adult life’s most important milestones, according to a report from The Atlantic. Carrying the weight of both these monumental events only furthers the narrative of what everyone should be accomplishing in their twenties.
So how do you get through your twenties? How can you be successful at getting through these important years?
So how do you get through your twenties? How can you be successful at getting through these important years?
As cheesy as it is, my advice is to stop trying to meet society's deadlines of where you should be and how you should act in your twenties. Our twenties are the years we look back on as we age to realize how much we grow in life. And you do not have to get married or have kids to do that.
In fact, an article by The New York Times makes the comparison that your twenties are similar to stem cells, with a million possibilities and outcomes of what your life could be.
We are capable of doing whatever we please. As long as the path we are choosing to take is the one we want to take, not the one our parents or friends want us to take, not the one society wants us to take; that is when we are truly successful.
I find myself constantly worrying about the future. Where am I going? What will happen after I graduate? Will I ever be able to figure it all out?
What are my passions? How am I going to make money? Will I be a sellout? Will I be okay with that? Who am I going to be in five years? How many regrets will I have?
Will I make the right decisions? What are the right decisions? What are even my options? Will I ever shake this feeling that I need something more? Will I ever truly be content with my life? Will I ever live up to my potential? What even is my potential? Will I ever forgive myself for my past mistakes? How much will those mistakes affect my future?
What’s my GPA? Why does my life revolve around my GPA? What if I had spent more time on that one stupid essay? Would I have more opportunities now? Have I already fucked everything up?
Will I be mediocre? Is there anything wrong with being mediocre? Does mediocre even mean anything? Should I be going out more? Should I be going out less? Am I a disappointment? To myself? To my family?
Should I worry about wrinkles and wear more sunscreen? Why does everyone seem to have all their shit figured out? What’s wrong with me? Am I just slower than everyone else? Do I just take longer to realize what’s important?
Does it even matter? Does any of it even matter? Aren’t we all just tiny, insignificant specks in a gigantic and relentlessly futile universe where none of our lives will ever truly amount to anything and in only a matter of decades I will be erased from the earth, totally forgotten? So why do I take myself so seriously?
I feel like there’s something chasing me all the time. I feel like it’s always been chasing me, but it’s been too far behind for me to worry except for some random, unperiodic panic attacks. But recently, I’ve slowed my pace, or maybe this thing that’s chasing me has started moving faster. Either way, I know that it’s gaining on me and that very soon it’s going to consume me whole. When I’m reading or writing or drinking or in the middle of a yoga pose, my heart beats unusually fast and I succumb to a kind of anxiety that erupts from the very pits of my gut and spreads to my shoulders and knees and fingertips and even slow, deep breaths don’t do any good. I ask myself, is this an emotional breakdown? And then I only want to scream, “ENOUGH WITH THE QUESTIONS!!!”
Everyone tells us that we’re overreacting, that we have time to figure it out, that we should enjoy these years. And everyone mocks the twenty-somethings and finds us vain, arrogant, self-indulgent, dramatic, immature, ignorant, ungrateful and exploitative of technology.
But school, is hard. Figuring out your life, is hard. In my brain, I understand that I have time to make mistakes and learn from them. But in my stomach, in my heart, in that place where fears, insecurities, mental health issues, paranoia, and anxiety (damn that anxiety) are all produced – I feel like time is running out, and that my life is a ticking bomb, and that if I don’t find the perfect solution to all these so-called imaginary problems immediately, I will be a failure.
And then I sometimes wonder if ambition is overrated. I spent long stretches of time this past summer being gloriously lazy and carefree. I went for long runs and long picnics. I learned how to paint and then I spent many nights awake painting and slept in like it was Saturday and the day after my last exam. I only read when I felt like it. I wasted a lot of money on brunch. I spent hours in the kitchen cooking Indian dinners. But everyone around me was moving, doing, studying, accomplishing. I felt guilty.
Did all their movements and accomplishments mean that their summers were inherently more meaningful? And mine was silly and frivolous?
What if there was a freak accident and the world was wiped and tomorrow we were all lying in our deathbeds? Would I regret my indolence?
When I am in my most meditative state, when I feel old and wise and can see clearly – I decide no.
I decide that in the minutes leading up to my death, I would probably wish for just one more morning where I could wake up after 10 and make a giant cup of coffee and sip it until lunch while rereading Harry Potter.
@baharoh
