My advice to people in their twenties - who are not where they thought they would be by now
Still haven’t got it all figured out just yet? Welcome to the club. Described as the defining decade, the pressure to have your entire life figured out by the time you reach thirty is starting to take its toll on some of us. Own your own home yet? Nope. Married? No. Kids? I can barely look after myself! Here’s why it’s okay to not be where you thought you would be by now…
Do you remember looking at people in their mid-late twenties whilst in your teens and thinking, “Wow, they’re proper adults!” “They must know exactly what they’re doing!” It’s funny how when you arrive at this point that you actually don’t feel that much different. Age is just a number, right? I remember having my whole life planned out at sixteen. I was going to study Medicine at The University of Leeds. I was going to meet ‘the one’ no later than twenty-one. Buy my first house at twenty-two, get married at twenty-three, and start having children at twenty-five. Fast forward eleven years, I am now twenty-seven, single, living back at home, and looking to make a career change.
I’ve often thought about what my sixteen-year-old self would say about me and my life right now. Would she be disappointed? Upset? Or angry that I didn’t pursue all of thing things I wanted? After beating myself up for years, having lots of sleepless nights, and thinking I’m a failure; I came to this conclusion. The truth is, you owe your younger self nothing. Absolutely nada. Because guess what, you’re no longer 16! Your younger self had no idea about the real world, the challenges you would face as you went through life, or the fact that what you did want, is no longer in line with what you want now. I’m sure that most of you reading this have not had a life that matched up to my sixteen-year-old’s expectations. Life is messy and complicated and you are constantly evolving and changing as a result of it.
As I’m sitting typing this now, the things I wanted are either things I would like to achieve later on in my life or not at all. For example, I can’t imagine being a doctor. I can admit to myself now that I don’t think I am smart enough nor have the right personality. And that’s okay. The life I originally wanted was not meant for me because there is a better one out there instead.
If you feel like you’re in a similar position to me, you are not behind in anything. The truth is, I don’t think anyone knows what they’re supposed to be doing. Life is not a race and it never was. Stop comparing yourself to close friends or Instagram followers. Everyone’s lives are completely different and we all have our own stories. You cannot compare your chapter two to someone else’s chapter fourteen. For now, just live in the present. Enjoy the aspects of your life that you do have and do what makes you happy. Identify what you’re not happy with and change them. Be proactive. Not happy in your career? Figure out what you really want to do with your life and start taking the steps to get you there. Fed up with being single? Love yourself unconditionally and then go out and find someone to share that love with.
Remember, that if you hadn’t experienced everything you have so far in your life, you wouldn’t be the person you are today. The highs and lows have taught me far more about myself than I could have ever imagined, as well as the life lessons I can now carry through into the next chapter of my life. I like to believe that everything we have gone through has led us to this point for a reason, and on the other side of the door is a life better than we could have ever imagined. We just have to knock.
