Imagine being at the ordering counter of your favorite coffee shop when the barista asks, “What would you like?”. Life is a lot like that counter. We step up to it everyday attempting to get what we want neatly slid over to us. But sometimes you mumble the order or you you’re undecided. Before you know it you’re running behind and what you really wanted has slipped from your grip so you pick up something pre-made on the way out.
My thought process throughout my twenties was that I don’t really need to know what I want in life— just yet. As long as I know what I don’t want I’m doing just fine. Funny how you can be so wrong. Figuring out how to create the life I wanted required much more than a process of elimination. Luckily I’m a quick study. But why are so many of us hitting our early and mid thirties, early forties even, and still unsatisfied with life?
It’s fair to say that our society propogates the belief that your twenties are for exploring—yourself, possible careers, other people, world destinations, and so on. The decline traditional values and the emerging of modern technology has given us the freedom of choice to seek out who we are and what we want before doing those more typical things like getting married and starting a family. But these things are happening later and later in life. And llife satisfaction and mental health are dropping faster than nationwide polls can keep up with.
What peole share the most on their death bed are not regrets over things like never seeing Paris, or sleeping with more people, working more. It’s regret over things like not spending more time with their family, holding on to grudges, and being too serious about life. There is this YouTuber who makes shorts of him asking people in their 60s, 70s, 80s what’s most important in life and what they’d do differently. Nearly every person mentions the significance of having quality relationships, family, and taking care of one’s physical health.
So how do we save ourselves from the trap of thinking we have plenty of time? The truth is we have a very particular amount of time before our lifestyle, habits, social circle, thoughts, beliefs, arteries become rigid. What if we prepared for what we want at the late in life, early in life?
Unlike that counter, life doesn’t allow for a re-do just because you misspoke or couldn’t decide.
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