Take Time to Recognize How Young You Are
My younger cousin is 17 years, 5 months, and 22 days old.
I know exactly how old she is, and as long as I have the internet by my side, I always will. But unless some asshole invents some cryptic device that tells you when you’re going to die, I’ll never be able to tell how young she exactly is.
I know I’m not really making a lot of sense. The closest analogy I can think of is how you know how fresh the milk you bought is because you can see the expiration date. Or how you know how early you are in a series because you know how many episodes you have left.
(Side note, I did not mean to compare my cousin with expired milk. Please do not take offense with that.)
And honestly, how would we measure youth, anyway? Would we measure it in percentages? Would newborns be 0% young? Or would we just constantly have a countdown timer to our death in our heads, like an even more fucked-up version of Final Destination?
I don’t know. And I don’t really like thinking about it.
But I know my cousin’s young. Her love for Riverdale basically gives this away. And I also know because not too long ago, I was just as young as her.
I just worry sometimes if she knows she’s young.
“I’m seriously about to graduate soon,” she tells me. “God, I’m getting old.”
Uh, no you’re not, I want to tell her. Because if you’re getting old…what the hell does that make me?!
It is a weird thing to be in your 20's.
You’re suddenly thrust into the outside world and you’re all, “Holy crap! I am not prepared for this at all!” Even if you know it doesn’t make any sense, you still feel like there’s a ticking time bomb to your success. If you’re not where you want to be at 25, you’re never going to make it.
Worst of all, everyone around you seems perfectly calm, while you’re freaking the fuck out.
This was basically my whole embodiment when I turned 19. “I have no idea what I’m doing,” I said to my best friend one night on the phone. “I basically threw my plans out the window, I’m not even in college, and I have zero work experience or credentials. What the hell am I supposed to do?”
“Dude, it’s all right,” he replied. “It’s going to be fine. You’re still incredibly young.”
It was really those last two sentences that calmed me down. It’s going to be fine. You’re still incredibly young.
So I calmed down, picked myself up, and did what I could do at that age — I went to vocational school. I was, after all, only 19, and I had to accept there was only so much I could do at the moment. I had to be patient. This was a process, and I had to trust in the process.
Whenever I worried, I’d constantly repeated those two sentences to myself. It’s going to be fine. You’re still incredibly young.
And if you’ve been following my blog posts, then I’m sure you know how the story turned out. I graduated from vocational school, got a great job that I loved, went back to college, and now, I’m writing on Medium.
And I know that isn’t as impressive as being the CEO of a company or something, but hey, I’m still incredibly young. Give me time.
And while I’ve grown and accomplished so much since that phone conversation, I still don’t have life even slightly figured out. Which makes me wonder: Why did I expect myself so much to have it all figured out at 19?!
Here’s the thing: I think we’re always aware of how old we’re getting. We celebrate it every year. It’s right there in our age. We’re aware of all the new things that come with a certain age and of all the things we’ve lost because we’re no longer as young as we were before.
At 19, I knew that I was no longer teenager young. I knew that really soon, I’d turn 20. YA books would no longer be written about people like me. I’d have to go out and get a job and be an adult and all that stuff, and the fact that I didn’t even have so much as a plan at 19 had me so worried that by the time I turned 25, I wouldn’t have accomplished anything.
I knew people who had complete plans at 17. How was I supposed to play catch-up?
What I didn’t know at 19 was just how young I still was. Retrospect has taught me that I really had no reason to worry. I still had a lot of time to figure out who I was going to be.
At 19, I felt so old. But now, I’ve never felt younger.
“I would so much like young people to have a sense of the gift that they are.”
— John Denver
It’s the same feeling I get when I listen to my younger cousin talk about her life. Whenever she talks about her problems, I can’t help but remember not too long ago, I was experiencing the same problems — which is so weird to me.
It’s weird to me that I used to be the same age as her, because at that age, I used to think I was so old and grown-up. And when I look at her, all I see is a kid.
An intelligent kid, definitely. A kid that I take seriously. But still a kid. I don’t expect her to have the problems or worries of an adult. When she talks about worrying about relationships or college or not know what she wants to be, I’m always thinking, “Dude, it’s going to be fine. You still have plenty of time to figure out what you want to be. You’re still incredibly young.”
Let’s be honest, when I say that to her, I’m saying that to my 16-year-old self too.
And I can’t help but wonder if I’ll be doing the same thing five years from now, and then the five years after that, and so on and so on. When I’m 30, will I look back at myself now and think, “Joey, I can’t believe you were so hung up over that internship. Like, seriously dude, you were a toddler compared to the job you have now!”?
“Let your youth have free reign. It won’t come again, so be bold, and no repenting.”
— Nikos Kazantzakis
So, to all my fellow 20-somethings:
I encourage you to stop focusing on how old you are — and start focusing on how young you are.
I mean it. Whether you’re in your early 20’s or late, you’re probably not as old as you make yourself out to be. There is so much you’ve haven’t done yet.
Think about how much you’ve grown since you were 10, or 15, or 20, and realize how much growth and change can possibly happen in such a short time. In just as short as 5 years, you could be a completely different person.
Stop torturing yourself about the future. Bury that worry. Work hard, but don’t overthink everything so much. Seriously, you still have so much time to be the person you want to be!
Stop imposing deadlines on your life. If you aren’t where you want to be right now, it’s never too late to start over. It’s never too late to live the life you want to live.
You will never be as young as you right now. Go and take advantage of it.
It’s going to be fine. You’re still incredibly young.
