Another new month.

I know we say it every time, but I swear the months and years go faster as you get older.

It still hasn’t fully sunk in that I’ll be 25 this year. It doesn’t seem old in the grand scheme of it all, however, knowing my freshman year of high school was coming to end ten years ago frightens me. It feels so distant yet like it was just yesterday.

I saw a post a while ago asking what your sixteen year old self would say about the person you are today. I’m not sure what she’d think honestly. There’s times I feel that I’ve done well for myself and made it this far and there’s others where I definitely saw myself on a different path.

I’m not sure what that path would’ve been though. I was confused as hell in high school about where I wanted to take my life. I was planning on college and going for psychology but even then, I had no clue what I wanted to do with a degree. I’m kind of glad I never got one to be honest. 

I’m a little older now, but the same confusion still holds. I don’t have a clue where I see myself career-wise. I’ve been taking my work life one step at a time in recent years. I used to stay in jobs because I was afraid of change. Now, I stay as long as I feel the job is benefiting my life. Not just financially, but my emotional state as well. 

 

I used to be afraid of leaving anything where I got too comfortable.

 

I didn’t think I’d be good at anything else nor did I want to give myself the chance to be. I’d find a solid ground to stand on and wouldn’t jump unless I had no other choice.

I see this evident in my friendships/relationships as well. When I was younger, I absolutely loved my friends, but if I had any issues with them, I’d never bring them up. I’d let them fester in my mind because I was afraid if I voiced my feelings, I’d be rejected in one way or another. 

I’ve gotten better with setting boundaries over the years and being more honest, yet that younger voice in my head to conform still follows me. I’m still not sure where it stems from, so we’ll blame it on insecurity. 

I’d say now is the most confident I’ve been in my sense of self, but I’m sure that just comes with age and experience. I wasn’t going to be an insecure teenager forever. 

It’s weird though. We can see all this growth in ourselves and the things we’ve accomplished yet somehow still feel so unfulfilled. We may have done one or two things we’re proud of, but the things that never came to be still linger in the back of our minds. 

I remember when I was one of the youngest at my jobs. I had all of these other people in their twenties to look up to or ask for advice. Now, I’ll see other young people around me and wonder where the time went. When did I become the older one?

I see the trajectory of my life after high school in those who are about to graduate. We leave high school with all of these ideas about our future with a plan on how it is going to unfold. 

We set the college plans or make the big moves thinking by 22, we’ll be feeling secure as hell. 

I chucked my insecure feeling in adulthood up to never finishing college, but I even see it in my peers who got their degrees. 

Whether our plans unfold or don’t, we’re still bound to feel confused in our twenties at some point. 

It’s a full decade of transitioning from our childhoods to laying groundwork in the adult world. 

 

We’re basking in freedom yet lost on what to do with it. 

 

Every little choice we make feels like it could make or break where we go next.

When I quit my manager job a few years ago, I was bent on whether I made the right choice. I felt like I had set myself up on a path to run my own store in the future and be set for a while, but my mental state was terrible. I felt torn. In those two months of unemployment afterwards, I had good and bad days.

Some days, I was completely excited to see what the future held. I had all the choice in the world and made my mental health my first priority again.

Other days, I beat myself up over not being able to handle it all. I had a good thing going and even though I wasn’t fully happy with it, was it really worth letting go because I got sad sometimes?

 

It was a moment that changed the course of my twenties indefinitely. 

 

I went from such a level of responsibility that I didn’t need at the age to taking a job that let me be a young adult for once. 

I entered the restaurant industry which looking back, was the exact move I needed in that moment.

I spent my first three years in a new town making no friends, spending my nights alone, and creating scenarios in my head. I’d form crushes that never came to fruition because I never wanted to leave my bubble. I’d start friendships only to never keep in touch. I was completely isolating myself from the world and had no clue at the time. I thought I was independent when truthfully I was afraid to be anything else.

Only a month after I started waiting tables did I start to open myself up. I’d hang out my new co-workers after hours. We’d go to the bar across the street or grab sushi next door. I went to concerts that year. I stayed up until 2am again laughing with those around me. 

I see now that without my job detour, I don’t know if I ever would’ve escaped my bubble. I was terrified of letting go of the path I was down when in reality that path had run it’s course. Like I said earlier, I just didn’t want change. I was afraid I couldn’t do anything else.

I wasn’t the best server to start, but now, I can multitask a large section without a problem. I found a rhythm in myself I didn’t know I had. 

 

The biggest thing I learned was that you don’t need to be born with a set of skills, the world is waiting out there to teach you.

 

Staying where you are when the growth is gone provides nothing but a disservice. You were meant for so much more than you think.

The point of life isn’t to take the path best traveled. We don’t need to sit down and figure out the next forty years of our lives when we don’t have a damn clue what will make us happy tomorrow. Life is ever-changing and the moment you go against that truth, that’s when you halt your potential. 

It’s not when we make a bad decision or fuck up. It’s not when you try something new and fail. 

It’s only when you believe you’re not destined for anything better.

 

Losing faith in ourselves becomes our biggest downfall of all. 

 

It’s easy to get caught up in what we think is right compared to what we feel. In your twenties, having no plan can scare the crap out of you and even those around you. We want to do well for ourselves or make the ones around us proud, so much so that we’ll head somewhere we had no intention of going in the first place. It’s just what ‘made sense.’

I still have a lot of life left in me. Twenty-five can feel like a wake up call on where we find ourselves currently yet it doesn’t have to be. Our age means nothing when it comes to how we want to spend our lives.

We see it all the time. 

Some settle down early with a family. Some plan to get married by thirty. Some want to reach a certain position at work in an allotted amount of years.

Others spend their lives traveling or completely kid-free. 

 

Every life looks different than the next, but we’ll still find ourselves planning on other people’s timelines. 

 

The years will keep on coming. There’s no stopping that. 

However, finding meaning in those years comes down to how we spend them, not reminiscing on what should’ve happened by then.

It’s a hard spell to break, but I’m confident that mindset is the only thing that pulls you through the moments of doubt.

It doesn’t matter where you are, but how you feel in that setting.

 

Are you spending your time in a way you enjoy?

Are you surrounded by people who lift and understand you?

Are you looking forward to tomorrow?

 

These questions are simple in nature, but hold some of the most powerful information. 

When we’re hurt by the answers to those questions or try to lie ourselves in to a good response, it prepares you to truly think about where you are in this moment. 

Five years from now doesn’t matter as much to you when right now, your current world doesn’t represent a damn thing you actually want out of your life. 

So, forget the paths or the happiness that may lie in the future. 

When you’re not happy on the way there, I guarantee you won’t care about the fruition of your plans. You’ll be on to the next thing forgetting how much turmoil you put yourself through to reach the last thing you wanted.

 

There’s always going to be a next big thing for us. 

 

A new idea, a new job, a big move, new plans.

The world continues to spin as will we.

Don’t spin because you have to, do it on your terms.

Live life on your terms.

Do the things today that would richen your experience here now, not in an undetermined future.

Plans exist as a guide, not a life sentence.

Change course when you need to.

Re-write a story that was written for you before.

It’s in letting yourself be who you want to be that you find the very things you wished for.