Being Lost in Your 20’s: 25 year old

As my 26th birthday draws near, I’ve been reflecting on a lot of things recently, especially with the lock down. After all, there’s only so much we can all do

As far as my 25th year on this planet, I ask myself:

Was it a good year? A bad year? Or just a year?

Last year, I had written a post called Being Lost in Your 20’s: 21 year old and a second post titled Being Lost in Your 20’s: 21 year old Pt.2.

As I originally had all these thoughts right after graduating, I wanted to do an update post, since it’s been a few years and things have changed. Plus, with all this reflection, I’m hoping to figure out what exactly this year has been for me.

Am I still lost?

Yes, but not in the same way I was when I was 21, and my thoughts on being lost are a bit different now than they were before.

Without further ado, here are my thoughts on being lost in your 20’s, as a 25 year old.

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When I was 21, I had graduated from college, and thought I would find something in Colorado. Life proved me wrong, and about six months after graduation, I ended up moving back home. From there, I worked several different retail and customer service jobs, at Target, Vons, Forever 21 and now Barnes and Noble (although, right now I’m not exactly working there, I am still an employee of the company), where I’ve met so many different people from various backgrounds and life experience. After hearing their stories and going through my own ups and downs, I’ve learned many different things, but the main lesson I learned is that there is no one way to “live life” or “be successful”.

We all have our own paths we take throughout life, whether it’s a result of the choices we made or the things that happen to us. Ultimately, what it comes down to is not when you accomplish your goals, but actually accomplishing your goals. It may take you longer to achieve what you want in life, but this just means that you have more time to grow and learn about yourself along the way. Sometimes, when we take the time to grow and reflect, we may even realize that what we believed was our ultimate goal, isn’t really important to us anymore. Through whatever journey you have taken, you may have realized that there is something else you want to focus on now in life, and that the original plan you had, isn’t what you want to do anymore.

And that’s okay.

It may be scary to think about how you’ve been working towards something for a long time, to suddenly realize it’s not what you want to do anymore. Yet, if this isn’t making you happy anymore, and really isn’t important to you now, why would you continue putting all your time and energy into something you don’t care about? It’s risky to suddenly abandon one path for another, especially if we are uncertain about this new path we want to pursue. Although, we are living in times that are full of uncertainty, and it will be more useful to embrace the fact that uncertainty will always play a part in our lives, even after everything “settles down.

It’s scary, dealing with the uncertainty of life, but it’s not the only thing that stops people from taking a risk. When we look into pursuing a different path, we might also realize it will put us “behind” in comparison to the people we know. I’ve struggled with this notion of comparing myself to other people, especially after graduating college, and having watched the path of those who graduated in my class. From my perspective, they have all been successful in their own way and found happiness along the way. When I reflect on my own life, I wonder, what exactly have I accomplished? What have I done since graduating?

Even though I know we all have our own ways of navigating life, it’s difficult to not compare yourself to others. This is especially true when we are struggling while it seems as though everyone else has it together. As we all know, in a logical sense, this is never the case, although in our hearts we don’t seem to understand. Every one of us deals with our own struggles, it’s just some people hide it better, or struggle more internally than externally.

Social media also makes it more difficult to see how others struggle, as we constantly see the positive highlights of someone’s life, while  our own problems sit right in front of our face. For me personally, I have issues being on social media because of my own insecurities, so I limit the amount of time I spend on there, and use that time to focus more on my social media pages for this blog, rather than scrolling through all the highlights. If I notice myself starting to feel down, I log out and either work on my writing or watch something on Netflix or YouTube that will make me happy.

(Honestly, I could go on a huge tangent about my thoughts on social media, but I figure that would be better to cover in its own post, so I don’t stray too far from the topic at hand).

Overall, you need to do what makes you happy, and in that regard, it may mean that your life isn’t going to look like a lot of people who are in your generation. Everyone lives life their own way, they cope in their own ways, and they grow at their own pace. Comparison is the thief of joy they say, and I am trying my best to remember it everyday. I do what I can to focus on making myself better so that I can accomplish what I want to accomplish, and not pit myself against others when there’s no need.

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I hope you enjoyed this post, and thank you for reading! I will see you all next with something new ✌

 

-Erin 🙂

Medium: https://medium.com/@erin.nord87

Twitter: @ENordhof

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