To be in you late twenties is kind of scary, actually – its very scary. Specially to be 25+ in 2015. Sometimes we are learning this the hard way. There are some similarities that probably a lot of 25+ people can experience. To get through this very confusing time in your life, you need to know – there are millions out there, just like you, fighting the same battles and having the same dilemmas. Here are some of the things you might have experienced already:
1. You are feeling completely lost.
If you are in you 25+ box, probably you already started your first or second serious job, or you are still trying to get through “internships” phase. In your teenage years and early 20+ you probably had many “light” or “temporary” jobs that got you through University, but you were not really treating them seriously. Now, its time to really start trying. And it’s time to decide. So – I have my degree, what do I do with it? Is it really my path? Do I like what I am supposed to be doing? These and other millions of questions appear in your head every single day. Yes, you are lost. Lost in work of corporate or non-corporate, trying to swim, but barely surviving in the surface.
2. Life in your 25+ is not like an episode of “Friends”.
It is physically impossible to hang out it the Coffee shop all the time, or drink every single day in the bar “How I Met Your Mother” style. You just don’t have the time. After 8 hours or more that are cut out from your life 5 days a week, plus the time that you use for transport – there is not a lot left out there and you really have to choose how you can use this time very carefully. There are just sooooo many things to do!
3. You are realizing the huge gap between your “studying” years reality and “working” years reality.
During your studying years you were living in dormitory or sharing a flat with other students or maybe you were still living with your parents (poor you if you have chosen the last option). Now maybe you still share a flat with working individuals or you started living completely on your own, cursing every single day that rent is a bitch. Anyway, your reality changed a lot. You need more space for yourself, less chaos around you to get stuff done. Room for yourself changes to a flat for yourself, where finally you can walk and dance naked and nobody can say anything. Your schedule is not as flexible as it was and it drives you crazy.
4. You are not sure you are chosing the right lifestyle.
Should I create a family for myself already? Should I take a gap year or two to be wonderfully lost? Do I like children or not? Should I have them? Am I egoistic enough to choose the lifestyle without family? Can I survive in a corporate world or should I take an individual path? What do I really need? Should I buy and buy and buy? Should I take a loan? Should I buy a flat already? Do I want pets in my life? AAAAA!!! These and many many more questions about the possible lifestyle that you want are popping quite regularly to your head.
5. You are considering creating your own company, because you figured that you really don’t like all this “boss-employee” thing going on.
You are starting to figure out that maybe corporate world is not for you and maybe it’s worth to take a chance and create something on your own. Come on, it sounds wonderful, I work when I want and where I want, I can take holidays when I want, I can just do whatever I want. You are creating a list of advantages and disadvantages of this decision, trying to write down your ideas for business, but you are still being stuck between thinking and doing. And if you are taking this leap of faith, you are learning that’s a lot more of hard work that you thought it will be.
6. You want to travel and experience thousands of things, but you can’t – because you have to work.
Where is all the time that I had before? You can’t just spontaneously decide to take a trip with your friends anymore. You have 25/28 days of holidays in a year if you are lucky. That limits you entirely. Damn, but I was supposed to visit Asia, Brazil, Australia and do all these crazy things I always dreamt of. Instead you dived already into the life of working person and you wish you have done all of these before.
7. You had the “CVs process” trained to perfection.
Yep, sending CVs and applications is a pain in the ass. You trained yourself in doing that almost to perfection. You have hundreds of templates ready to use in every single occasion, while applying for a job. You’ve been to countless interviews and you just don’t even get nervous anymore (only if it’s your dream job maybe), because it’s like having breakfast for you now.
8. Daily routine is killing you.
Life can become a lot more organized for you now, that means – sweet, boring routine. You are preparing your breakfast the same way every single day, taking the same path to work, baaah, even standing in the same place every day to catch your train/metro/tube/tram or having the same pattern during your lunch time and after work. Good news is that you can always try to break your routine completely if you realize that’s its there.
9. You find joy in the things you would label before “for old people”.
What did I just buy for myself? A coloring book for adults, a knitting kit, crosswords or sudokus? Am I just cracking this puzzles right now? Yep, you realize you like to do sometimes something that is usually consider an entertainment for older people. And you should not care about it, because it makes you relax. Whatever helps you reach your ying yang zone – screw what others think and just do what you want in your spare time.
10. You really don’t want to party anymore.
Oh please, when you have a choice – stay in your comfy pyjamas and binge watch TV series while eating some delicious snacks and a party that involves tons of preparation for it and dressing up properly, what will you choose? After 25 I choose pyjamas and I’m not gonna apologize for that.
11.You need more sleep and comfort in your life.
Remember how before the exam you could have a sleepless night or you slept 2 hours after coming back from a party and it was enough for you to survive a day? No, no, no, freaking 8 hours now sometimes is not enough to get you properly rested. Hard life. Haaaard life.
12. If you are single your red right start beeping, saying “it’s high time to find someone, I will be 30 for God Sake!”.
Where is her/him? Am I doing something wrong? I will die alone with lots of cats. If these thoughts sound familiar you can be sure you reached 25+ box. Just come back to your sanity and realize 30 is not THAT old. It is just old in your mind and you have plenty of time to find your perfect or not so perfect half.
13. If you are in a relationship all the signals in the world are telling you to get married and settle down for good.
Turn off these facebook pages right now! Yep, everybody is getting married. It doesn’t mean that maybe this is something you should consider. Don’t let society mess with your head. If you are happy – great, if you’re not – then change it. But don’t get married just for the sake of getting married (and for nice pictures J), that’s just…silly, don’t you think?
14. Freaking children of your friends are everywhere.
Yes, that’s another scary factor. Half of your friends, same age as you, and they have children already. Damn, some of them have 2 or 3!!! Don’t freak out and be thankful that you are not yet forced to
dedicate your entire life to a small cutie human being. Take your time and enjoy your blissful years with no responsibility (well, just for yourself).
15. You are constantly comparing yourself to others your age and thinking who “achieved” more by now.
Stop stocking people! Easy to say, harder to do – believe me – I know. But at the end of the day comparing yourself to anyone else doesn’t do you much good. You cannot compare an apple and a banana. You don’t have the same goals, same priorities in your life, and for sure – you are not even specializing in the same things, so why bother? If you feel down, because you met or read about some twenty-something millionaires, please don’t. I have a secret for you – they are robots J But on a serious note, it’s not always good to succeed too early in your life. So maybe just keep your calm, do your best and turn off facebook once in a while.
16. You are starting to see the first signs of getting old
Ohh yeah, give me the good stuff. Wrinkles, grey hair, pain in the back. Yep, they are all appearing one by one. You also noticed that you feel a lot more tired than you used to be. Don’t freak out and if you feel bad about it, just make sure your lifestyle is healthy. Eat more healthy, move a little and you won’t mind this extra grey hair that just appeared. Why? Because you will know that you are taking care of yourself and that’s just a normal process of aging. Billions of people get through it before you, so you can do this as well.
17. You are wondering how the hell it happened that you are so damn old.
Just yesterday you were 18, right? And you still feel 18. But number 1 changed to number 2 magically and suddenly, that’s your impression. Well, as people say, time flies, it’s the most beautiful cliché that is also the most true. Well, our whole life seems to run extremely fast sometimes, so instead of wondering where the hell all this time went, just try to make the most of every moment you are in. Fucking golden carpe diem.
18. You are aware of your age, but you completely don’t feel like it.
You still want to go to the playground and swing on a swing and don’t be judged for it. You still like fluffy things and silly things, and you freakin love dancing like crazy when you are alone and nobody is watching. Being positive and a little crazy doesn’t have
anything to do with being mature. You can be both, don’t let the age zombies and stiff people tell you any different.
19. You are starting to define your style and changing it to more “official” type.
You cannot just go around with your hoodie everywhere now, can’t you? Unfortunately your casual style had to become more “smart” and “official”, because you wanted to be taken seriously. But, you have to remember, when you are changing your style a little, you don’t need to change your personality. You can still get a bit crazy once in a while and show some balls (not literally, please).
20. You are irritated by the whole lots of things, you weren’t irritated before.
Crowd in a public transport, children shouting everywhere, rude people, taxes, cold coffee and many many more. When you were younger you were walking through town, sun was shining, rainbows were appearing, birds and unicorns were singing and everything was beautiful when you were casually walking through your university campus or when you were coming back home from a party proud of yourself that you had so much fun. Now, you have to be somewhere, and you need to be there ON TIME.
So, yeah, you get irritated much more easily. Just breath, count to 10 and keep going, there is absolutely nothing good that can come out from this completely unnecessary stress that irritation brings you.
21. You become grumpy sometimes.
Oh yeah, you have things to complain about now. So if you really need it – take a friend for a coffee and complain as long as you want. Just don’t do this too often and not just to one regular friend, cause he or she may get rid of you. It’s good to share and complain just to get it out of you chest, but it should clear your aura – so don’t stay grumpy for long, just cheer up. Everybody has problems, that’s how it works.
22. You have this irrational fear and anxiety about many things and you are wondering where the hell went “the super brave” you.
Remember these sweet times, when you didn’t mind sleeping at the airport and nothing could scare you? Now you are becoming full of little fears and insecurities about your life and you are wondering why you cannot be fearless like you used to be. You cannot just go somewhere without a plan or a shelter and just figure out things on the way, that sounds like something you could do in your early twenties. Well, that’s the perks of being young and not aware of many things. When you are not aware of something, you cannot be scared of it. Now you watched too much TV news and you heard too many stories and voices everywhere tell you to take care, don’t do this, don’t go there, don’t eat this, plan your every move. Ehhhhh…its harder to break through this now, but if you really want – you can still be fearless. It is in you somewhere, you just have to search for it.
23. You are thinking about the future and trying to figure it out thousands times more often than during your studying years.
Ok, so my 1 year plan is this, and in 5 years I’m going to achieve this. And in November 2017 I’m doing this. Sounds familiar? It’s good to plan to get things done, but don’t obsess over it too much, because you will lose “here and now”.
24. You don’t really want to reveal you real age to people anymore.
Before it used to be fun, now you feel tempted to lie. Don’t do that. Feel proud of your age. Just keep telling yourself, I’m 20-something and look how amazing I look. Jealous, ha?
25. You get to the final conclusion – this shit get real. I freaking miss being a child.
Yes, you are living a real life now. I remember how my father used to tell me that students life is the best time of your life. Of course it was amazing and I didn’t have to worry about so many things, but also – it felt a bit unreal. Now its raw and real. It’s a completely different reality. With all the responsibilities you sometimes wish to hide under the bed and just be a happy child again. And as all the superhero movies say – with great power, comes great responsibility. You have power now, you have power to shape your life exactly like you want it to be. Forget about time and what you are supposed to be doing according to anybody else. Do what you want, find you way, make mistakes, shape your dreams. You are allowed to change your mind and make your own paths. Don’t become grumpy and cynical because of everyday routine, fight for your enthusiasm to stay at the same level as before. And don’t be afraid, if shit happens, shit happens, you can only adjust and learn.
redpoppyseeds 