I have been listening to Vienna by Billy Joel on repeat for over an hour.
It is so easy to get lost in what other people our age are doing. No matter what, you always feel like you are behind. To feel like there is no time for a breath.
Some people your age are happily married. Some have children. Some are thriving socially. Others have amazing careers, with Ivy League college degrees hanging in their new office.
I have a group of friends, all between 21 and 29. Some are married, some have children, are pregnant, and some enjoy leisure time and travel often.
None of us are behind.
It is so easy to get lost in what people show on the internet. We are consuming information daily about someone buying a house, someone starting a new job, graduating, or having their third child. We forget that life is not that neat. We forget that life is not that easy, not that gradual.
You can be married now, divorced, and then happily married by 47.
“Slow down, you’re fine. You can’t be everything you want to be before your time.”
You can have your dream career by 30. You can change your dream at 26. We forget that as we grow, as time moves by, we change. We grow. We cannot speed through this process.
Time is the one thing mankind has not been able to defeat.
You don’t have to figure out what you want to be or do by 21. By the time you are 31, your views, and your dreams will probably have changed. When you finally have your dream job, you’re not going to regret the steps you took to get there.
If you take a day to relax, you’re not going to fail your classes.
If you don’t clean today, the dust will continue to be there.
You can breathe.
You can take a break. You are allowed to sit around and do nothing, without feeling the guilt of not chasing your dream.
Some people get pregnant accidentally, some take years of trying to get there. Every person’s life is different. You’ll get to the life you are meant to live. You need to let it come to you, instead of chasing after it.
My mother is going to be a grandmother soon. You would never guess by her spirit, her energy. Life passed and she let it. She passed with it. She took time by the hand and walked side by side, instead of trying to run ahead. She is happy.
I wish I was that relentlessly happy. Instead, I stress about having multiple streams of income. I stress over-exercising and eating healthy. I think about everything. Thinking about what I still need to do probably takes more time than me doing it. I feel as if I don’t have time to breath
You have so much time. You still have so much time. Take a breath.
“Slow down you crazy child. Take the phone off the hook and disappear for a while. It’s alright, you can afford to lose a day or two.”