I used to think that I should spend my twenties determining my basic life tenets, maxims and deal-breakers so that, when I finally hit thirty, I can begin applying them. Lately though, I have been finding myself becoming increasingly anxious as my twenties come to a close, because it has come to my attention that I still have absolutely no idea what I am doing.
Don't get me wrong--this decade has not been without lessons. With each victory, as well as every let-down, heartbreak, and disaster, I find myself getting schooled. Sometimes I have to learn a lesson several times before it sticks, each time kicking myself because the last time I swore to myself that it would never happen again. I feel pressure to figure myself and the world (or, at least my world) out before I hit the big three-oh, when--I don't know--the stakes become higher, or something like that. Whatever the source of the pressure, it can be hard to think straight amid it.
But maybe it's the pressure I should be looking at. Perhaps if I can maintain the wherewithal to look at each individual moment of learning a little more light-heartedly and with a little bit more self-compassion (and maybe even a sense of humor) that pressure to know everything by a rapidly-approaching deadline will, with any luck, begin to fall away.
Besides, the older I get the more apparent it becomes that nobody really has anything truly figured out. We're all, in our own ways, frantically racking our brains, wishing for the proverbial Cliff's Notes.
No comments:
Post a Comment