Ok so I made up the term Quarter + 5 midlife crisis. But no one warned us about turning 30! The 1989 babies are all approaching this time in their life where what we are doing and who we are doing it with seem more important than ever. The time when we all thought we would “have it all together.”
All these questions started popping up more than normal lately. Like am I fully living my life purpose? Am I going in the direction that would enable the realization of my dreams?
I believe I’ve achieved a lot, but still feel I can or should achieve more. You know, the things we are all striving for, but know in our hearts will probably never make us happy. Because there will always be something we want more of. Whether it’s money, power or distinction. The things that feed the ego more than anything else.
I think I’ve always done well when it comes to comparing myself with others. I was fully invested in the idea that we are all living our own story and timeline. I was also satisfied with the choices I made, so it made it easy for me to be happy for other people.
But as 30 approaches I’ve caught myself every now and then wondering if I should do things like my Instagram “friend” whom I don’t really know, who probably lives on the other side of the world, who has totally different life experiences and opportunities and who is totally different from me!
The thing is I’ve always had a timeline for my life. But it’s been a relaxed timeline for the last 28 years. The moment I turned 29 the clock got louder. So loud I had a few days straight where I sat in my living room staring at my Planner for hours wondering about “my next move.”
The worst feeling for me is being confused about the next big thing in my life. I can spend weeks obsessing about my vision for the next year. But 2019 was a bit blurry so that sent me into panic mode.
I was on the edge of so many decisions. Meditation, yoga, tea, nor sleep helped. If only I realized in that moment all I needed was time.
Only until recently have I started letting go of this made up timeline. And when I mean recently I mean in the last week! It was giving me anxiety and I started to forget all I accomplished because I was panicked about the future.
There’s so much pressure we put on ourselves. We worry about the way we are perceived. We wonder if we succeeded enough in life. We stroke our egos in many different ways. We are the generation that actually still does remember playing outside as kids but also saw the rise of internet. The curse of the older millennials? Social media. Misconstrued status’, filtered pictures and storylines of what we all want the world to see. I made that decision a couple of years ago to use social media for something good. I decided it was for sharing my life in a way that can hopefully inspire others. And empower myself. Share some things and keep some things private. The only validation we need is our own.
So how can we all start to relieve the social pressure of today? Wake up every morning with gratitude. Remember everyone was born in different families with different experiences. And to all the people feeling “behind”… you only feel behind because of what you feel the world expects of you. But the real question is what do you expect of yourself? And what are some steps you can take to go towards that? With age hopefully, who we truly are, becomes clearer. We are given the opportunity at the end of our 20s to look back at our youth and all the lessons we learned. But boy do we have so much to look forward to! It’s not the end, at all! It’s just the beginning of a new beautiful chapter.
Just a more mature one!
