In a couple hours I’ll turn twenty-four. There’s nothing to celebrate at twenty-four. When you’re sixteen, you’re excited to drive. When you’re eighteen, you’re excited for college. When you’re twenty-one, well, you’re excited to party. The excitement tends to go down after twenty-one, another year older, another awkward age.
We’re always looking forward to something, aren’t we? I’m guilty of it too. I’ve always loved those quotes, “enjoy today,” or “the present is a gift.” I’m going to turn my back on all of this for a second and give you a perspective on the very far end of the spectrum. Isn’t anticipating a good future what drives you? If we were all a 110% happy with our present situation, we wouldn’t spend time to always improve our personal or career lives.
Financial security is what drives people to work 60+ hours a week and disregard the years of their youth. Or people like me whose journey is happiness; we constantly wish we could fast-forward to a few years older and see where life will take us. Both scenarios, regardless of the motive, are filled with actions that are ignoring where we are right now.
To an extent, we all expect to achieve some type of goal by a specific timeline, maybe even thinking that life will definitely be in place when I turn so-and-so. I’m sure I’ve felt that way too about some aspects. But now I’m so lost that I’m switching my murder mystery fiction books for spirituality guidance.
Comparison is never justified, but we always find ourselves doing it more so within these years of our life.
It’s because all of us, though similar age groups, are in vast stages of our life. If we’re doing it now, we’ll always continue. We’re always searching for the next best thing. Being in your mid-twenties is filled with dreams of where you want to be. Constantly wishing to be in a better place is a common characteristic of us humans, one that is difficult to change.
Why are we doing this to ourselves? Nothing in life is ever constant. It’s ever changing. What you have today could easily be gone tomorrow. Is this where perfectionism comes in? Is the goal, subconsciously, to achieve a life that is perfect in our standards in every facet of our life?
Most of our life is filled with moments of nothingness to celebrate. But the fact that we celebrate those moments is exactly what keeps us going and makes the present precious.
Though we may wish to overwork ourselves to achieve wealth or fly into the future and peek into who our companion will be, maybe bringing ourselves back into the present is necessary. In this chaos of striving and wishing during these mid-twenty years, if you closed your eyes right now and took a step back to view your world from the outside looking in, what would you see?
That is what’s making up your future.
Originally published at www.daretoglam.com on February 4, 2017. Connect with me on Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest.
