I find it way too easy to forget that I am in charge of my life.
That may seem like a weird statement, but think about it for a minute: how many times a day to you complain silently to yourself about your job, or your hair, or your significant other, or the city you live in, or..... I find it frighteningly easy to get stuck in a victim mentality, to start thinking of things as happening to you, rather than you making things happen.
Maybe this is common in your twenties, maybe it's common forever, but I need to remind myself that I'm an adult with autonomy, smarts and free will. If I don't like something about my life -- my job or my home, my daily schedule, my wardrobe -- I can do something about it. I'll go further: I should do something about it.
It's easy to start viewing your life as a series of stages, set out like steps or platforms before you, and at the end is some ill-defined higher state (heaven? enlightenment?). It's easy to look at the way your parents lived their lives and imagine yourself doing the same types of things. But maybe, though more difficult, it might be more rewarding to think about the way you -- you, the person you are right now -- might like to live your life.
The possibilities really are endless. And one of the most freeing things to remember is that you don't have to figure it all out right now -- another easy pit to fall into, I find. I get stuck on trying to figure out the rest of my life. Well screw that, how about the next year or two? Where do I want to be? What do I want to do?
Remember when you were a kid and every day was endless? Remember how you didn't necessarily know what would happen one hour to the next (what game you would play, what you'd have for a snack, what new thing might catch your interest)? Each day was a series of discoveries: a snail in the grass, a math problem, a glimpse of adult interaction that taught you something about how things worked.
It was easy then, I guess, to not worry too much about what would come next, because your parents took care of all your needs. But it is possible to recapture this carefree inquisitiveness, the inclination to be happy rather than sad, the energy to try something new. Alcohol helps, I find. But there are other, more permanent ways, like spending time each day learning something you didn't know before.
You might guess by this post that I've been thinking of lots of big-ish things lately. But really, if you know me by more than this blog, you know I'm thinking all the freakin' time (another pitfall sometimes). Though I may have talked a good game above, I'm much more inclined to think exhaustively, plan far into the future, and obsess over the progression of things -- careers, relationships, thesises -- so injecting a bit of freedom and spontanaeity into my thinking is difficult for me.
I thought it might comfort some of you who are in the same 'life stage' as me to know I suffer some sort of quarter-life-crisis more or less daily. You're welcome.
Comments