"I am so excited to make money doing something that I love doing."
My friend of nineteen years uttered these words and I had to stop and repeat them to her. And give her a congratulatory hug. How many of us can really say that!? And at 23-24 no less. I hadn't seen her in nearly nine months and it seems somewhere in between our visits she found a sense of self and held on tight. I love watching people I love explore their passions. And I love even more, knowing the journey it took to get there.
Because I think I'm still getting there.
______________________________________________________________________________
The shit show that is age 23. (Not my words, but what my boss decided to name the year...and your early twenties in general) And to a certain extent, she is right. You are searching. Your soul and last night's jacket for the house key you lost for the umpteenth time. You are yearning. For fulfillment that used to come in college's dollar pitchers. You realize that that "you" is a distant memory and so you start to consult other things that are even less "you" like yoga mats which start to collect more dust than zen. You make a little bit of money and you spend it on rent and student loans and boozey brunches and overpriced gym memberships.
But in the midst of all these things you still feel so incredibly unsettled and at a loss of what to do with your life, and you realize that what's more valuable than your measly income, is time. And my boss said she's never had more time than the time she had at 23.
And then I had this huge urge to take better care of my time.
So I've decided that the early twenties "shit show" is meant to be spent exploring; Actively pursuing things that scare you like going on dates or trying new foods or running a marathon. This time spent dismissing fears and nurturing the butterflies in your stomach is the stuff that makes you: The nervous jitters that present themselves in the form of overactive sweat glands before a date. The feeling of uncertainty/stupidity when you mispronounce that thing on the menu and you think God, I should have just gone with the chicken fingers. The adrenaline that comes when you find yourself standing alone in the corner and you decide to take the courageous plunge to utter "hi."
I imagine you will become good friends with failure. But I'm too optimistic to think that it will break you; rather, it will give you character to overcome it.
So act intentionally instead of passively. Let "you" happen to things instead of the other way around and I bet that the version of "you" that you really want to be, will be.
Because finding your sense of self is the most attractive thing a person can do. So far I've ruled out dollar pitchers and yoga mats. But scribing thoughts and coffee shops; I think I'm getting warmer.