I’m 23 and Still Have Zero Idea About Life
How I passed through a quarter of my life and still have billions of questions about it.
They say when you grow older, everything will make more sense.
I thought that once I entered my twenties, I would be more mature in my way of thinking so that I would have an idea about how my life is going to be. But hey, I just turned 23 this February and I still feel the emptiness inside me. To narrow down my big questions about life, I turned them into the well-known 5W and 1H questions.
“Where do I belong?”
I lived with my parents for 19 years until I finally moved to a different city for college. Being exposed to diverse communities has made me question where I truly belong. Friends come and go, and relationships end, which has made it difficult for me to maintain connections for long. I started losing my trust and became afraid that the relationship would end just as it was beginning.
“Who am I going to be?”
I always wanted to be a musician, and here I am now, a musician myself. While my current job is in the field of music, and I am making money, I still find myself pondering who I will be in 5 years. Will I still be making music? Or will I ever perform on big stages, just as I always dreamed? Who will I become?
“When will I achieve my life goal?”
Having a successful life (no matter how you define the word ‘success’) has always been everybody’s dream. I have this vision of what I want to be doing in the future, and I call it my life goal. This goal encompasses not only my professional aspirations but also my personal development as a human being. I aspire to live a meaningful life. But when exactly will I ever be able to achieve it? In a world that is changing so rapidly, it’s hard to keep track of time.
“What went wrong?”
Just when I think I am on the right path, moving forward, I make small or even big mistakes along the way. As a person who always makes a to-do list and prepares for what I want to do, making a small hole in the process makes me question my worth. In those moments when I make errors, I start to question, ‘What went wrong?’
“Why am I still here?”
I have always been someone who loves the term ‘little by little.’ They say that to achieve your goals, you have to take every step, little by little. Even though that statement sounds easy to follow, once I only make a very tiny improvement on whatever project I am working on, I start to question, ‘Why am I still here?’ Achieving the big dream I always have in my mind feels so hard.
“How am I going to survive?”
Lastly, my most frequently asked question is, ‘How am I going to survive?’ Being in my twenties has taught me a lot. I’ve faced many challenges in my life, and they never seem to end. Once I finished college and thought that my biggest problem (making a thesis) was finally over, I was faced with the challenge of adult life — making money, and making a living. And as I approach my late twenties, I may (hopefully) get married. That’s when I’ll enter a new phase with new significant challenges. So, how am I going to survive?
Well, perhaps some of you who are reading this are also experiencing the same confusion as me. I just wanted you to know that you are not alone. Life may be changing so fast, and challenges will come, but somehow I know that there will be a way. Hang in there!
