A question I ask myself every other day.
Last week I turned 21, and whilst I had the best birthday of my life and was absolutely spoiled and filled with love...I couldn't help but think "is this where I'm meant to be at 21?"
As a generation I think we are extremely guilty of comparing ourselves to one another, constantly measuring our own success by those of our peers, despite RT'ing so many quotes on Twitter telling other people not to do exactly this. I feel like this hits harder during your twenties, though.
Growing up you have no serious concept of time or real acknowledgement for the future, because for me personally I'm pretty sure I wanted to be a fire engine for a good few years of my childhood. In school, time is pretty much sorted for you, as you're allocated school hours, homework, half terms etc so you always know where you are and what you're doing. Even as a teenager, you have the excuse of not yet being an adult, under your parents supervision, you've not quite reached the deadline where you 'have to have your life manual sorted'.
And then you become an adult. Nothing is compulsory. You have the rest of time to make the world your own...but where the bloody hell do you start and how do you know when you've reached your goal????
For example, my current friendship group consists of a Mother, someone travelling the world, someone doing an international internship, some of us working and some of us still at University. And I suppose from the outside it probably seems like we do have our shit together. We've got a current purpose, we're living as a twenty-something.
But what's next?
Or does that even matter?
It's not as if we're living in a world like 30 years previous where you could leave school, jump into a random-ass job and within 12 months you've got yourself a mortgage. Today, especially for women, we have the pressure of having to have strong career aspirations to make ourselves hard; and setting up LISA's and ISA's and saving accounts all for a mortgage we won't even access or pay off until we're at least 205.
Your twenties seem like the biggest stepping stone to the rest of your life. You're worrying about what your career for the rest of your life will be. Trying to work out who your friends are that'll stick with you forever. Wondering how you'll make the most money in life...
You're doing absolutely everything but enjoying where you are right now.
The reality is: you're allowed to not know what's next. You're allowed not to know where you want to be in five years. People in life will come and go. We working for a good 60 years guys, we can change careers a million times if we want to.
And whilst I'd rather cry in a Porsche than a Corsa, money doesn't ultimately mean happiness X
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