28 and Clueless? You’re Right on Track!
It’s a Tuesday morning, you wake up, feeling like not doing anything. But you drag your ass up out of your bed into work. You might have a few friends and projects that come along to make life bearable, or sometimes even fun. But there’s this emptiness and a voice telling you that it’s not worth it and you need to find something better to do with your life.
To make matters worse, you open Twitter to have some fun and you’re met with annoyed people throwing jabs at each other but also, a group of young people living an awesome life making an impact. You feel overwhelmed so you move to Instagram, swipe to Snapchat a few minutes later and the pressure is getting worse because almost everybody seems to have their shit together in ways that make you feel useless. The voice in your head grows louder because you’re almost 30 and you haven’t done half the shit you said you were going to do when you hit 20.
Before you close work, you decide to go to LinkedIn to check one or two things because you’re a serious professional. Now this would be the worst decision you made today because boy oh boy, aren’t people thriving on there! Makes you feel even shittier than before. You spiral into an overthinking marathon. Like clockwork, you remember all the “should and shouldn’t haves”, all the “if only I hads” and “how the hell am I gonna”
At this point, you realize that “it is what it is” because nobody is coming to save you and your government has failed you. You fire up YouTube to relax before you go to bed and repeat everything again, looking forward to the weekend only to dread Monday morning on Sunday evening.
If this is remotely you, welcome to the party. I have some good news and some bad news for you. The bad news is that, yeah you’re probably fucked and you’ve probably wasted time on some nonsense all this while and your life could’ve been different, which probably wasn’t entirely your fault because you didn’t really have any choice. But the good news is that no matter how hard you try, you can’t go back and change anything, so there’s no point losing sleep over the past. This only means one thing. You have an urge to make changes in your life towards the next 10 years and you have data from the past to help you make better decisions moving forward. That, you have control over. (To some extent)
If this is remotely you, welcome to the party once again. I have even more good news for you.
YOU DON'T NEED TO HAVE YOUR LIFE FIGURED OUT BY AGE 28.
Most people at 30 don’t have their lives figured out. Don’t let the internet tell you that you need to have figured it out by 25. Big lie! That being said, you do need a plan. And even if you can’t plan, or don’t know how to plan, just DO, experiment, try things, make all your mistakes, and pray to God to direct your path and reveal your purpose to you. and most importantly, collect data because that’s the best gift the past can give you. Then you make an informed plan for the next stage of your life. Whatever you do, make sure you’re enjoying the journey because the destination is a mirage that keeps pulling away.
My message is simple, focus on what’s in front of you today, do it with all your heart, make plans for the future because you can’t change the past, and don’t think everybody who has “figured it out” on social media has indeed figured it out. Pray that God shows you what your own journey looks like and be happy you are where you are today because it is for a reason. Life is not a competition, it’s a long ass party. Enjoy it before it’s too late.
