The clock ticks midnight and all of a sudden my teenage years begin to slip away between my fingertips.
I felt a lingering nervousness about turning twenty, as though a drastic change was upon me. There’s an awfully strong voice on the back of my brain that often nags away at me with pessimistic thoughts, “You should be doing more with your life”, and “You need to get yourself together”. This voice seems to neglect the idea that I have bounds of time and instead convinces me that the start of a new decade calls for a sudden need to have everything figured out.
Truthfully, I don’t quite have it all figured out and I’d be very surprised if anybody really does, no matter what age. Yet, I’m tired of the pressure to know exactly how my life is going to pan out, as though it should be already pre-written like a movie or play.
I’m also not sure if this pressure is self-inflicted or another one of society’s methods in making you feel absolutely terrible about yourself, it’s most likely a mix of both as nothing ever seems to have a definite answer.
To those older than me it probably sounds ridiculous that I felt worried about turning merely twenty. While understandable, I cannot imagine this feeling getting any better as I reach new years and new decades. It’s as though humans are preset with the same internal feelings of guilt and dissatisfaction no matter what stage in their life they may be at. While easier said than done, it would be so nice to see everybody be just a little bit kinder to themselves, me included. Life is for living, a truth that can get so easily lost sight of by constantly worrying about how good you’re doing at it. If you view your life as a checklist, you'll miss all the wonderful, simple things it has to offer. 'Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.'
- Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, 1986.
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