Youth Thoughts: I’m 21, but I feel so much older.
When people tell me I have time because I’m young, I feel like I need to know where I need to be, or else when I’m older I’ve missed my time.
If you asked me who I wanted to be, where I pictured myself in the next five years, what I would want to do, the only 100% thing I am sure of is that I want to have been able to watch a BTS concert in-person. Maybe it seems simple, unrealistic, or just fanatic. These days it’s hard to picture a destination in the long run, it’s easier to live day by day. It’s easier to grasp onto something tangible, possible.
I sometimes ask myself:
What am I searching for?
These days sometimes I look for the feeling that makes me feel alive, where the worries, the shambles, and the pain of the world isn’t on my mind. The brightness of life overpowers my fears and makes me feel unstoppable. Whenever I watched concerts before, even for just a moment, it felt like the world stopped and life felt like the best thing that ever happened to me.
It’s easy nowadays to blame external factors for what’s happening in our lives. We can’t go out, we can’t travel, we can’t live well-off if we don’t have another job. It’s because of the government, it’s because of the corrupted system, it’s because of the colonial mentality. It’s easy to feel insecure when you feel that the world is working against you. No wonder people are in survival mode.
Yet, on a movie night, I watched Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru. Among the many things that stuck with me was this,
“Life is not happening to us, it is happening for us.”
If you hear it once, sometimes it’s hard to wrap your head around it. Does all this pain, suffering, injustice, and tears have a purpose? Do all the moments we felt wronged, lied to, abandoned, and betrayed mean we deserved them? But here, take a step back, look into the mirror, and who do you see? You see yourself, and maybe you don’t like it. It’s hard to face yourself, to know all these flaws, to know you don’t know where you’re going. Does this lack of purpose, which gives us anxiety and stress, have some higher meaning than just the agony of living?
I see so many people, strangers, friends, who seem to have it all figured out, who have higher wages, who look better, who live better. There are times I feel behind, I should’ve done this before, I shouldn’t have done this. Regret is a gnawing feeling. I still think like this when my mind wanders but wasn’t I the one who said before, “Comparing yourself to others is disrespecting yourself?” Looking beneath the surface of envy, I come to realize that these people I compare myself to are so different from me, with different priorities, backstories, and environments. How could I compare?
What am I searching for?
I’m searching for something to make sense. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? Some things really just don’t seem to make sense… at least not when we’re looking for them to.
Isn’t it ironic that people who are our best friends came into our lives unknowingly? We never expected them to be a huge part of our lives, but because of some higher power, they are. I never knew BTS existed until last year, and now my life is changed for as long as I live. In contrast, it can be the same thing with relationships that simply just don’t work or people who drift apart from each other. We would never want a close relationship of ours to fail, but this is life, and some just do.
Life goes on.
But do you?
Even if you want to turn back the clock, life is happening for us. Who would you have been if you didn’t experience struggle? Who would you have been if you didn’t meet your best friend? Who would you have been if you didn’t move across the world? Who would you have been if you didn’t fail?
I sometimes wonder who I would be if I never left the States. Would I have been more outgoing? Would I have been still shy? Who knows? I never knew I’d be who I am today without the experience of living in another country. It’s part of who I am, it’s part of my story. I don’t regret it, and I don’t hate it. It simply is my life.
Even looking back just last year graduating with a degree in international studies, then somehow having worked in e-commerce, and now digital marketing, I never expected I would be here either.
You might be asking, doesn’t that just mean I didn’t plan my steps well?
Anyone who knows me knows I am a planner,
I don’t walk into the fire knowing I won’t get hurt, I know I will.
I know that even if I plan a well-crafted timeline, it will change. No, not because of external factors, but because of me. I change. I learn, I grow, I stumble, I fall. Yet, I stand back up again, I walk, I run, then I fly. And as I grow older, I’m slowly starting to learn that I don’t need to explain my steps to anyone, I don’t need to please anyone. Things don’t need to make sense to other people, they need to make sense to you. Because yes, maybe there are people we want to make proud, but most importantly, let’s make ourselves proud. If we look for some higher calling, I believe everyone is called to make the most out of their life, however that may be.
Live however you want, it’s your life anyway
Stop trying, it’s okay to lose
[Fire by BTS]
What am I searching for?
They say time is the most valuable resource, but I would like to pose this idea, I believe we are our best resource. When we look at ourselves, it’s easy to see the things we don’t like, but when I look at other people, people are beings full of their own dimensions, ideas, stories, fascinations, needs, desires, and dreams. Couldn’t we look at ourselves like this too? Belief in ourselves is a powerful thing. If you think about it, we are unstoppable. It all stems from the belief that we are.
We become even more powerful when we realize people are multifaceted beings. They are not just one thing. You and I are not just one thing. You could be a indie-rock loving person, and love K-Pop on the side. You can be someone who swore they never would get into business, but now you’re starting your own. I think that’s amazing. You can be anything you want to be.
We could try to be like anybody else, but we are ourselves, and that’s more powerful than anything in this world. I guess you could say I’m searching for myself, so who am I?
As time passes, where will I be? As the years go by, will the world finally heal?
There are so many unanswered questions I have. The search for a feeling of living, reason, and myself is a never ending journey. I know I’ll still have frustrations with the world, moments of envy, and stumbles that make me question if what I’m doing is right. But what can I do? I’m only human. No one ever really gets things done right the first try, I’m a beginner at life just like everyone else. I can’t offer you a to-do list, or a step-by-step procedure to figure out what to do with your life, heck, I’m still figuring it out myself. I’m quite sure I haven’t seen the worst, and even the best of life. What I can offer is my hand held out to you. You are not alone. Life is crazy, and you need to find ways to stay sane these days, but maybe it’s also a call for us to realize we don’t need to go through things alone.
This search for ourselves that we are all on is not going to be found in other people. It will be found within ourselves. The possibilities we can do are already right here, in us, and they never disappear. It is just a matter of being open to who we are, our heart, and our soul. To not hold ourselves back.
I’m 21, but I’m starting to learn age doesn’t really matter. Wherever you are in life, do what you want. Your age shouldn’t restrict you, it’s just a number to show how long you existed. I mean, does it show how long you actually lived?
