All through our teenage years, we wanted to rush and grow up. We wanted to grow up so we can take our own decisions and be our own bosses. We wanted to grow up to experience freedom and independence. Then we grew up. Bang! The reality hit us in the face. Non-teens wasn’t a paradise.
The minute the term ‘teen’ was out of the spelling of our age, the world began expecting more from us. We were expected to do something out of our lives, become responsible overnight and know exactly what to do (like some Sharmaji’s son who knew what he wanted to do since he was six!). We didn’t take a pause to reflect. Instead, we kept being swept away by the current of what one is supposed to do in their 20s.
Some got married, some had to join their family business, some had to simply go abroad for higher studies and some had to take up a job. But what about what YOU want to do?
Take a deep breath and take a pause.
‘,’
You do not have to conform to the stereotypes of your age or time. You do not have to do something simply because you are a certain age. You do it when you feel the time is right. Unlike how it is portrayed by the world at large, we do not function according to a Big Brother in the universe. We have our own tiny clock, that ticks for us. Follow that.
Your 20s are the time to discover yourself. You seek and find. You take risks, you explore and you do things that bring you closer to finding your purpose. Do you think you were born to get into a churning routine only to save up enough so you could have a lavish wedding and buy a home one day? Do you think that is it?
Often, the current generation has the responsibility of revolution. Revolution isn’t always drastic.
Imagine this. Millions of years ago, there lived our ancestors – the men who walked on fours. For them walking on twos was not conforming to the stereotype of that time. They questioned, adapted and evolved. If they hadn’t, what would we be today? And if we don’t, what will our future generations be? Stagnant? Remember, Darwinism?
In your 20s, you question, you try and then choose. If there is truly a responsibility you have in your 20s, then it is the responsibility of evolution. The ones younger to you are still growing, the ones older to you are getting resistant to change with their increasing age. You do your bit, by truly exploring what your life can be. You cannot do that by doing what people before you kept on doing.
Look at the bigger picture and enjoy the quarter-life crisis. Don’t forget to breathe.
“We are the representatives of the cosmos; we are an example of what hydrogen atoms can do, given 15 billion years of cosmic evolution.
– Carl Sagan”