25 Things the Internet Says I Should Have by Age 25
It’s tucked in my pocket 90% of the day, and it tells me many things.
It tells me when to wake up.
It tells me when my next meeting is.
It tells me that my rent is overdue, that my FAFSA needs renewing, that the Word of the Day is turophobia [tur-uh-foh-bee-uh]: an irrational or disproportionate fear of cheese.
To be exact on how many things it tells: the bluebird tells me 6,000 things per second, while the purple-brushed camera tells me 1,100 things. The yellow ghost tells me I’m ugly.
They tell me that life is hard.
They tell me that life is beautiful.
They tell me that life is beautiful for so many people that aren’t me.
They tell me that I should be myself.
They tell me that I should be someone who isn’t myself.
They tell me I should be Keanu Reeves.
They tell me one day I’ll figure it out, kid.
They tell me, with a fuzzy image of Kermit the Frog draped in a black hood, that Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself.
They tell me that sometimes, your dreams don’t come true.
And that it’s your fault. But that it’s also not your fault.
And that life isn’t worth living. But that it is still worth living.
And that we can joke about not living anymore. But that we should still keep living.
Because maybe your dream wasn’t your dream at all — it was what your phone told you your dream should be.
And because people you don’t think about enough (because they’re often not in your phone) would cry because they’d miss you.
The internet tells me many things, but all I know is its behemothic, unfathomably complex engine created to make life simpler, does the opposite.
The internet didn’t tell me to make a list of things it tells me. But I did anyway.
Because sometimes, to learn something, you must take the matterless stratosphere that holds infinite information and hide it in your closet.
And now that I’ve done this, I’m forgetting what the internet tells me I should have before I’m considered ancient.
So I’m going to write it down.
25 things the internet tells me I should have before age 25
A wife, or at least a girlfriend, or at least someone with whom to share tweets multiple times a day.
A pair of children. Or a pair of puppies. Or kittens. Or monk parakeets. Or ball pythons. Or chinchillas. This is getting to be a strange line into Noah’s Ark.
Fifteen years of field-related work experience.
Roughly $75,000 in student loan debt.
Also $0 in student loan debt.
At least three years of political activism or protest experience, evident by organizational membership, charitable donations, or Instagram bios.
A boat. Here, Wife can spend summer weekends flipping the children from lake tubes while finding perfect margarita tequila ratio to the twang of Kenny Chesney in the speaker. Good tweet, Brittany.
A steady stream of “ambitious content to support your personal online brand,” even if my brand is anxiety-ridden post-graduate and my ambitious content is comical takes sprinkled with hints of depression.
A Zoodler.
A Kitchen-Aid stand-up mixer.
Basic knowledge of things you can make with a Kitchen-Aid stand-up mixer.
Addictions: caffeine; nicotine; alcohol; Netflix specials; Ben & Jerry’s Half-baked ice cream.
My own vegan-muffin baking shows exclusively premiered on Facebook Live.
An on-call therapist who tells me I’m perfect and all of life’s problems are caused by people who aren’t me.
Lactose intolerance.
The ability to run three miles without rupturing a lung or a tendon in the knee. Or even two miles. Or even the 20 stairs between the first floor of my workplace and my desk.
A $3,000 stash to fund ‘spontaneous’ vacations to Belize after my boss asks me to stay 30 minutes after 5 and I ‘just need to get away from it all.’
Paralyzing guilt from being the last generation of humanity that doesn’t yet question the ethics of bringing a newborn child into a dying world.
Wendy’s 2 for $5 deal, featuring spicy nuggs, a spicy chicken sandwich, or Dave’s single burger. Oh wait, that’s an ad. Let me click out of it.
Life jackets for the boat. Shoot, Winston and McKayleigh Rae could really use those right about now. Ah, we’ll find them eventually. No shoes, no shirt, no problem — right, babe?
At least one reusable grocery bag that I forget underneath the sink every time I run to the store.
An explicit memory of every line of every episode of all nine seasons of The Office.
An address I plan to live at for longer than 12 months.
A thorough understanding of Social Security and how it will not exist by the time I actually need it.
An expensive leather-bound planner with my name imprinted on the cover to keep my most personal and intricate thoughts in one place, which, in reality, will end up on someone’s timeline.
