Essay from a 21-year old
Days pass, sometimes faster sometimes slower but time still passes no matter what we do.
“The future is not written in the stars. There are no guarantees. So claim your adulthood. Be intentional. Get to work. Pick your family. Do the math. Make your own certainty. Don’t be defined by what you didn’t know or didn’t do. You are deciding your life right now.”
— Meg Jay, The Defining Decade
This quote is from a book that I recently read called The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter — And How to Make the Most of Them. It is kind of a stereotypical, cheesy quote about doing the work and putting in the effort in doing the hard things, but it has really affected me after reading the whole book.
Why am I writing this or why am I even here? Well, it may be because some TikTok told me to write when I start to overthink, or me attempting to mimic the actions of people I admire. But at the end of the day this essay is for me to calm my nerves, or to one day be able to look back on this in the future.
Improving and Learning
Sometimes I feel old and that I am behind in life but that’s all a lie. I need to stop overthinking and comparing myself to others. It’s hard, and to be honest, I don’t know if I will ever be able to stop. But I’m never going to stop trying. I think this is the most important part. I just have to keep in mind that I have to keep on moving, keep on going, and try not to look back.
Another thing that I want to keep in mind is the concept of moderation. Sometimes I dream of being a workaholic, working day and night to reach a moonshot goal that will change the world. But it’s not realistic as everything should be in a degree of moderation. Working hard is important but I need to understand that the beauty in the journey is not only the goals but the little breaks that you allow yourself to have.
“Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”
— Edward Sullivan
Mentors
Last year my school hosted an event where the students could listen to an accomplished engineer talk about his work. At first, it seemed like this man had everything together, from a badass job, accomplished resume, to even great style and perfectly trimmed beard. But when I asked him the question about how he feels about his accomplishments, he told me that he himself also has imposter syndrome. This surprised me as he still questions himself every step of the way.
Mentors are people also. They are going through life learning and experiencing the vibrant world that we all live in. But this should not stop us from letting mentors be a resource that is invaluable to us. They can be from all different cultures, ages, and ethnicities, but the most important thing is to learn from them.
Mentors are sometimes only referred to in the professional sense as they may be older and further in your career field. But I want to change this, as I want to not only learn from mentors in a professional sense but also in a personal sense. I hope that my mentors in the future will not only be professional superstars but also life teachers.
Being Bold
I’m a very anxious person, I hate the unknown and am scared of anything that is shrouded in fog. People sometimes say that as young adults we need to wait and be patient. Although I do agree with the virtue of patience I want to be proactive and act more bold.
Often I feel that I am not cool enough, not accomplished enough, not handsome enough; everyone falls to this mindset and it might be true sometimes to a certain degree, but the only thing you can do is control your own actions and try to improve yourself. So in the future, I want to be bold, I’m going to talk to people I admire, try to run the marathon I never did, or maybe even talk to the pretty girl at the party.
“life is sending you perfect pitches all the time. All you have to do is swing the bat”
— Edward Sullivan
Being Genuine
I HATE FAKENESS. Ok, hate is a strong word but I am really irked by people who are fake as everyone is a person of their own creation. This means that your morals and actions and the product of who are. If you are not really true to yourself as a person you are writing yourself to be someone who is truly not yourself (ya ew cheese, ya it’s really corny but true).
Taking advice from the white girls on TikTok XD
I’m making a vision board like all the indie girls on TikTok. I’ll map everything out and make sure that I’m doing actions every day that will tackle the “visions” on my board. We all have goals and role models and a lot of times we may be let down after developing these ideal views of a job or someone else, but this may not be a bad thing as we can change these goals and make it so that we can strive for a brighter future.
If you have gotten this far I would like to thank you for reading this and I’ll end this post with a quote from one of my best friends.
“We are all on this stupid floating rock.”
— James Leu
— From a confused 21 year old who cannot stop thinking
Hey thanks for reading again and if you liked this essay, please click the little applaud below. It will mean a lot to me!